


Trial by Error

by lucyrne (theungenue)



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Drabble, Implied Sexual Content, Mash-up, Multi, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 22:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 42,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1833970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theungenue/pseuds/lucyrne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Soul Eater one-shot collection, many loosely inspired by scenes in other films, TV shows, and other media. Latest: Soul doesn't believe he is destined for greatness, but when he begins to feel magic crackling around his fingertips, a shapeshifter convinces him otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Final Deathtination.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soul discovers that Maka knows more about motorcycles than she lets on. Inspired by a scene from FMA:B.

When Soul found out that the only chop shop in Death City was named after another morbid pun, he wanted to curse at somebody. After he visited said chop shop for the first time, he wanted to sing its praises to the heavens. It had everything from junk ball bearings and tires to brand spankin’ new bikes ready to tear up the pavement. If his beloved orange beauty needed a quick check up or a much-delayed upgrade, Final Deathtination wasn’t the final destination. It was the only destination. 

What usually would be the highlight of his week was going to be a tedious and excruciating pain because this time, Maka was coming with him. 

Soul wasn’t normally embarrassed to be seen with Maka in public, but Final Deathtination was staffed and patronized by some of the toughest characters the Deathscythe had ever seen. She was bad ass with a scythe in her hand and a kishin in her sights, but in a bike shop surrounded by bikes and enormous, grease-stained gearheads? Maka was going to stick out, and Soul’s cool-guy persona would be majorly compromised. 

The things I do for love, he thought as he caressed the handlebars of his motorcycle. Soul saved for months to get his bike a new upgrade, something to spruce the old girl up, but then he shredded her front tire after returning from a mission. As he rolled it down the sidewalk, the bike’s body jerked unsteadily. He really needed to replace that goddamn tire, but he couldn’t do that AND give his baby the TLC she deserved. So he called in a favor. 

Maka rode on his motorcycle almost as often as he did. She never drove it exactly, but if she wanted to ride around in it all the time, Soul reasoned, she had to contribute to its upkeep. He expected it to be a tough sell, but his meister was surprisingly cool with the idea. But on one condition: Maka was going to come with Soul and help him pick out the upgrade. 

The bike shop’s storefront looked like bomb exploded inside. Scorch marks crawled out of the door frame and beyond the window panes, and the iron letters spelling “Final Deathtination” were rusted red and mired with soot. The smell of diesel and gasoline--noxious to most, intoxicating to Soul--emanated from the dilapidated building’s open garage. 

“What a dump,” Maka said. Soul sharply smacked the sleeve of his meister’s leather jacket. 

“Don’t say that,” he said in a hushed tone. “Actually, don’t say anything. These guys don’t really like to talk shop with people who don’t know their stuff.”

“I can talk shop,” Maka protested. “I read everything I could about motorcycles before coming here.” Resolute, she added “I’m going to talk shop.”

“You’ve never driven a motorcycle in your life. You can’t talk shop.” Maka huffed and stuck her hands in her jacket pockets. 

Soul ignored the store’s front door and rolled his bike straight to the garage, where he would undoubtedly find the only guy he trusted to take a look at his baby. 

The chief of the chop shop of Buccaneer, a demon wrench who left his weapon career behind in order to follow his passion for mechanics and motorcycles. He had the silhouette of a grizzly and an attitude to match. His hair was cut into a short mohawk, and a long braid trailed down his back like a horses tail. Since becoming a Deathtination customer, Soul learned that not only was this man was eternally grumpy, but he hated all of his customers on principle. 

“ ‘sup Buck,” Soul said. He positioned himself in front of Maka--motorcycle stuff was more his area of expertise than hers, after all. 

The large man stopped shining his own bike and scowled. “Don’t be familiar,” he said gruffly. Buccaneer’s eyes briefly darted towards Maka before landing on Soul’s orange motorcycle. “Why did you bring that piece of shit in here?” Buccaneer’s nostrils flared like an irritated bull.

Soul remained blank and aloof. “Front tire’s out. I was hoping you could fix her up with a new one. I’m also looking into adding a new upgrade. She just needs something new.” 

Buccaneer’s gravely voice boomed as he laughed. “What that thing needs is to go through a trash compactor. Now this,” Buccaneer made a sweeping motion with his arm, “This is a real bike.”

Soul didn’t like having his baby insulted, but he had to admit that Buccaneer’s bike was a work of art. It gleamed in the dusty garage, a like diamond nestled in a pile of rubble. 

Maka poked her ahead over Soul’s shoulder. “Is that the Vyrus 987? With a Ducati engine?” 

A light blush pinked the mechanic’s cheeks. “Uh yeah, just got it last week. It’s custom.”

“I can tell. No way are those factory specs,” Maka said. Soul’s mouth of hung open as Maka strode forward and began to actually touch Buccaneer’s bike. Never in the million visits Soul made to this place had he ever been allowed to come within five feet of Buccaneer’s prized bikes. Maka was kneeling now, sliding her pale hand over the bike’s seat and poking at the wheels.

“Are those hubcaps...diamond tipped?” Maka asked. 

Buccaneer scratched his cheek shyly and beamed. “Uh, yeah they are.”  
“Really?” Maka leapt up, spun around towards her partner. “Soul! Do you want me to get your bike some of these?” 

Soul wrinkled his nose. “It ain’t my style.” Maka pouted and continued to examine the bike. 

Buccaneer casually strode away from Maka. He loomed over the demon scythe. “Who’s that?” Buccaneer murmured. “She’s way too cute to be hanging around you.”

“She’s my meister,” Soul answered. 

Buccaneer took one long look at Soul before turning back to Maka. She laughed lightly, closing her large green eyes and slightly tilting her head as she smiled. Her pigtails brushed her shoulders as they swayed to the right. 

The intimidating mechanic looked stricken, and a growl brewed in his chestt. An enraged howl burst from his throat, and Buccaneer’s enormous paw-like fist transformed into the head of a wrench. He delivered a swift uppercut to Soul’s jaw, knocking the weapon off his feet and propelling him against the room. Soul collided with the wall with a harsh smack and sunk to the ground. The mechanic changed his fist back to normal and stalked towards the door. 

Reeling from Buccaneer’s sucker punch, Soul couldn’t help but sound a little winded and wimpy. “What the hell you do that for?” 

Buccaneer didn’t stop or turn around to answer. _“Because life isn’t fair!”_ He pushed the door to the shop open and slammed it behind him. 

Soul struggled to his feet and head his head. He was the Last Deathscythe, but man was he going to feel that punch for days. He looked sheepishly around the room, and spotted Maka mounting the Vyrus 987. Her creamy legs were stark against the bike’s cool black exterior, and her ass was pert and snug on the bike’s seat. She gripped the handlebars experimentally before finally noticing Soul. 

“I told you I could talk shop,” she said triumphantly.

A small trail of blood dribbled out of Soul’s nose, so he plugged his nostrils with his hand. “No kidding.”


	2. The One Where Everybody Knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based upon a "Friends" episode. When Death the Kid and the Thompson sisters discover that Soul and Maka have been secretly dating, the sexual mind games begin.

Death the Kid, the most powerful being on Earth, the reigning sovereign of the supernatural, and the personification of Death itself, didn’t find out two of his closest friends were dating until he actually saw them doing it with his own two eyes. 

After his ascension to a full-grown shinigami and his assumption of his father’s old role, Kid quickly found that the small things he took for granted as a mere student were nearly impossible to enjoy as the actual Lord Death. Privacy, for one, was no longer a guarantee. All manners of people needed to speak with Kid at all hours, and Gallows Manor was becoming less like a home and more like an extra office. In hindsight, it was no surprise that his friends Soul and Maka started seeing each other right under his nose without the shinigami taking any notice. 

What was more surprising was that his weapons Liz and Patty didn’t know either.

Fed up with his inability to relax at the Manor, Kid resolved to rent an apartment. A secret apartment. If Gallows Manor was to be his office-away-from-the-office, he needed to have a home-away-from-home. 

The girls accompanied Kid as he began to tour apartments. It was extremely important that the layout and location appeal to Kid’s aesthetic tastes, but he always appreciated their input. Kid was inspecting the bathroom when he heard Patty chirp in the living room.

“Hey you guys, we can see into Soul and Maka’s apartment from here!” 

“Oh yeahhh, there they are right now,” he heard Liz respond. Kid was on his knees and peering underneath the sink, and he crawled out to meet his weapons in the living room. The two were looking out a large window, and Patty pointed at a smaller window at the building across. The angle was awkward because they were on a higher floor, but there was no mistaking it--that was Soul and Maka’s apartment, and they could see Soul and Maka talking inside.

“Well this is fantastic,” Kid noted. “It’s almost like we’re neighbors.” This apartment was looking like a better and better fit with every minute.

“Hey! Hey you guys!” Patty said, waving her arms through the window. Soul and Maka clearly could not hear her, because instead of waving back to Patty they began to take off each other’s clothing. Soul’s fingers nimbly swept down Maka’s shirtfront, undoing every button as they went lower and lower. Maka’s small hands were grappling with his belt, and Soul’s head dived towards Maka’s neck. 

“Oh,” Patty said in confusion. Her bambi eyes widened. “Oh! OHHH! AHHHHH!”

Liz began jumping up and down and screaming, “SOUL AND MAKA! SOUL AND MAKA!”

Shinigami did not just have 20/20 vision--they viewed the world in high definition. When Soul hoisted his meister against the window and Maka wrapped her legs around his waist, Kid saw it all clear as day.

“They’re doing it!” Patty screamed. “Look, they’re doing it!”

“My eyes!” Kid wailed. Blown away by both this new revelation and the way they stumbled upon it, the three ran out of the apartment. 

Later, Liz and Patty called an emergency meeting at Deathbucks with Black Star and Tsubaki. Kid was tied to his desk and a mountain of paperwork, but he trusted his weapons to get to the bottom of this. When the twin pistols discovered Tsubaki drinking coffee without her meister, they quickly made another shocking discovery.

Tsubaki and Black Star both already knew. They already knew.

“So you mean everytime they say they have to do a lot of laundry or going grocery shopping…” Liz trailed off as Tsubaki nodded shamefully. “Oh! And when Maka had to be on the phone with her mom for all those hours--”

Tsubaki’s ponytail bobbed as she continued to vigorously nod her head. “Uh huh. Sex, sex, and phone sex.” The shadow weapon didn’t enjoy keeping secrets, and she appeared physically relieved to have this burden off her chest, at least to two more people.

Black Star swung open the door to Deathbucks and leaped into their booth. After settling down, his constant monologue of boasts and trash talk was interrupted by Tsubaki tugging on his shirt sleeve. 

“Kid, Liz, and Patty just found out about Soul and Maka,” Tsubaki said quietly.

Black Star looked shiftily between Tsubaki and the weapon sisters. “You mean about how they are best buds?”

“No, we know,” Patty said. “We saw them screwing. Against the window.” Black Star glanced at Tsubaki and shrugged. He wasn’t denying it--there was no point. Now that the cat was out of the bag he had no problem talking about it in the bluntest terms.

“They didn’t want Maka’s old man finding out they were fucking,” Black Star said. “So they decided to just not tell anybody. But no one can keep a secret from the great Black Star.” 

Black Star found out about the lovebirds after he casually climbed through their apartment window and caught them at it himself. After laughing in their faces and receiving a harsh Maka Chop from the irate scythemeister, Black Star was sworn to secrecy. Of course, it never occurred to Black Star that telling Tsubaki would count as breaching Soul and Maka’s trust. 

“Okay, okay,” Liz said. She stared into the distance beyond Black Star’s shoulder as a new idea took shape in her head. “So you’re saying they only actually told you. This means they know that you know, but they don’t know that any of us girls or Kid know...”

“It’s doesn’t matter who knows!” Tsubaki said. She ran her fingers through her ponytail. “We all know, so we should just tell them! That way all the lying and the secrets can stop.”  
“Or we could not tell them we know and have a little fun of our own,” Patty said. 

An hour later, Soul and Maka finally appeared at Deathbucks. As far as they knew, the pair was right on time. Everyone purchased another first round of coffee and greeted the secret lovers as if nothing was different. On Soul and Maka’s side, everything was as casual and platonic as can be. They didn’t touch each other more than necessary, Soul ragged on Maka’s underdeveloped body and Maka insulted his intelligence, and they even sat at opposite ends of the booth. After Soul got his coffee, he stood up and walked to the other side of the room to add more sugar.

It was time to make their first move. Patty gave her sister a wink before getting up to go after the scythe. Once free from the booth, she grabbed her breasts and pushed them up before striding over to Soul. He was stirring imitation sugar into his coffee, and when he noticed Patty standing next to him, he grunted in acknowledgement.

Patty grabbed Soul’s upper arm. “Hello Mr. Bicep,” she said. Soul stiffened at her touch, but he kept his face blank. “Are you working out more?”

“I guess,” Soul said. Patty started to run her hands up and down Soul’s sleeve. Soul stared at her roaming hand as if it offended him. “Are you okay?”

Patty looked at the scythe longingly. “I can’t tell you. Just forget it.”

Soul glanced at the booth on the other side of the coffee shop. He decided to adopt a brotherly tone with Patty. “Patty, if there’s something really bothering you, you can just tell me. It’s fine.” 

“But you’re the one person I can’t tell this to. And the person I want to the most.” Patty smiled coyly as she looked up at Soul with her enormous baby blue eyes. The scythe started to look genuinely confused. He brought his coffee to his lips before Patty continued. “It’s been a while since I’ve been with anybody, and I think it's just that sometimes you're looking for something and you just don’t even see that it's right there in front of you sipping coffee--” Soul sharply inhaled his coffee, and he spat out the scalding liquid back into his cup to stop himself from choking.

Patty’s hand lingered on Soul’s shoulder. “Well it's just something to think about. I know I will.” Patty swaggered back to the booth, leaving a flabbergasted Soul Eater in her wake.

After the Spartoi get-together, Maka noticed that Soul had retreated inward. He was laying on the couch, eyes closed, with his bulky noise-canceling headphone covering his ears. Her weapon often became distant like this when something was on his mind, but she usually could figure out what it was. The only thing remotely new and different in Soul’s life right now, as far as Maka knew, was their new relationship. Her stomach lurched--if Soul was suddenly having second thoughts about being her boyfriend, she wanted to know about them now. She spent years silently pining for Soul, and now that they regularly slept together Maka was terrified of losing the boy she spent so long waiting for. 

Soul still didn’t know how deep Maka’s feelings for him went. Before diving into that cavernous trap of emotions, Maka needed to know for sure her feelings were requited in their entirety.

Luckily, Soul decided for himself that it was time to come clean. When Maka gathered her resolve and walked into the living room, Soul was already removing his enormous head phones.

“Something weird happened at the coffee shop today,” Soul said with a frown. “I think Patty was hitting on me.”

Maka exhaled in relief. “Really? Patty? You probably just misunderstood her.” She plopped down on the couch cushion next to her weapon. Patty Thompson was beautiful, curvaceous, and flirtatious, but she was young, silly, and kind of weird. She didn’t really register as a threat on Maka’s radar.

Soul shifted towards Maka on the couch. “No, I don’t think I did,” he said. “She was all over me. She groped my bicep.” Though the weapon clearly did not mean to get Maka thinking about his biceps, her eyes started roaming over his wiry body.

“I bet it was supposed to be a joke,” Maka said finally. She reached over and started to toy with Soul’s hair. 

“Maybe I am overthinking this...” His fingertips trailed over her knees, causing her skin to tingle. 

They quickly forgot about Patty and her strange flirtations, and instead tumbled into their bedroom for some hot and heavy meister-weapon bonding. 

The next day, Soul and Maka were checking out the dispensary for new missions when they caught Liz and Patty loitering outside the Death Room. Maka went out of her way to say hello to gauge exactly how much she should be worried about Patty, if at all. Liz was genial and snarky as usual, and Patty was bubbly. No threats found here. She said her farewells and headed down the corridor. 

Soul was also waving goodbye when Patty bounced in front of him. “Bye Soul!” she said cheerfully. In a quieter, more seductive voice, Patty added “I miss you already.” Patty’s hand struck like a cobra, and she gave Soul a firm, yet flirty pinch on the ass. A small yelp emerged from Soul’s throat, and Patty skipped away to catch up to her sister. 

Soul heard Maka stomping over before he saw her. Hey deep green eyes were livid--she had seen the whole thing. “Did you see that?” Maka asked.

Soul rubbed the back of his jeans. “I definitely felt it.”

Maka continued to fume. “I can’t believe this! Who does she think she is?”

“Uh, a single person flirting with another single person?” 

“But you aren’t a single person!” Maka whispered fiercely. “You are very much taken, and even though we’re being discreet I’m not going to let--” Maka stopped short. A faint sound of understanding escaped her lips. “I get it,” she finally said. “Patty knows. About us. And she is trying to freak us out! That’s the only explanation.”

Soul gave her a flirtatious grin. “Maybe my bulging biceps and pinchable ass are the explanation. They worked on you.” His face soon made grueling contact with Maka’s textbook. 

Maka needed confirmation, so she sent Soul to question a certain ninja. The scythe quickly found Black Star yelling outside the DWMA atop a pillar. When the ninja came down to finally say hi, Soul went straight to business. “Black Star, Patty knows about me and Maka.”

Black Star laughed and held up his hands in surrender. “Well I didn’t tell them.”

“Them?”

Maka was furious when Soul reported back to her. Not only did Black Star tell Tsubaki about their relationship, but Liz, Patty, and the current reigning Lord Death knew about it now too. How many more tongues had to wag before her father found out? Moreover, Patty’s meddling was a blatant invasion of privacy. This was war. If Patty thought she could mess with them, they were going to mess with her. 

Maka dialed Patty’s number into Soul’s phone, and stuck it in her boyfriend’s ear. Soul sighed and waited as the phone continued to ring. 

“Hello you,” Patty said seductively into the phone. 

“Hey Patty, I’ve been thinking about you all day,” Soul said in a low voice. This felt like betrayal, even though it was his girlfriend who was pushing him to do it. “You know the thing you said yesterday? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued.” Maka was resting her chin on his shoulder, listening along as Soul attempted to sound interested in a girl he sort of considered his little sister

Patty squawked on the phone. “Eh?” 

“Listen, Maka is going to out of the apartment later tonight,” Soul said. His meister pressed her mouth to his shoulder to stifle her giggles “Why don’t you come over and I’ll, uh, let you feel up my bicep. And maybe more.”

They waited with anticipation for Patty to break character, but they clearly underestimated the younger girl’s resolve. “I’d love to come over. I’ll be there at seven--” Soul and Maka heard a yelp in the background. “--uh eight, I’ll be there at eight.”

“Sounds good,” Soul said.

“Good. I look forward to banging you through the floor.” Patty hung up before Soul could choke out a response. He dropped the phone on the coffee table and stared at it. What exactly did he just agree to? 

Back at Gallows Manor, Liz and Kid were floored when Patty received Soul’s phone call. Soul Eater Evans, the boy who had literally jumped in the line of fire multiple times to protect Maka, was going to cheat on his meister, with Patty of all people. It was so extremely out of character, there was only one explanation for it.

“They know,” Kid realized. “They know we know about them, and they want to mess with us. Those fools think they can get away with messing with us!”

“But they don’t know we know they know we know,” Liz said. She flashed a conspiratorial smile at her sister. “Looks like Patty is going on a date tonight.” She took Patty’s hand, and the the three of them set out to get Patty ready for the night ahead.

Kid already purchased the apartment with the large window, and it was there that Kid and Liz waited. He needed a distraction from work, and this prank on Soul and Maka was a happy distraction indeed. He might officially be Lord Death, but at his core the young shinigami was still a kid. The minute hand inched towards the number eight as Patty crossed the street and made her way to Soul’s apartment building. Through his soul perception, Kid knew that Maka was still in the apartment. She definitely knew this was happening, and she was laying in wait to see what would happen between the two weapons just like they were. 

Across the street, Maka was hiding in the bathroom and prepping Soul for his date.

“How far exactly do I have to go here?” Soul asked. In his lame attempt to prepare for this date, he decided to wear a button-down and a loose tie. This all seemed like a funny idea a couple hours ago, but the scythe began to feel like he couldn’t commit to this charade. 

“Just convince her that you want have sex with her,” Maka said as if she were reading a grocery list. “Don’t worry, she’ll give in way before you do.”

“How do you know?”

“Because we’re a team, and we always win.”

“Right.”

Maka grabbed Soul’s tie and reeled him so she could peck him on the lips. Once their mouths met, Soul leaned into the kiss and moaned. His meister shoved him away. “None of that right now,” she said. “Go out there and get some!”

Patty showed up at their door wearing a little black number and clutching a wine bottle by the neck. This struck Soul as strange because despite everyone in Spartoi being legal adults at this point, neither Soul nor Patty were old enough to buy alcohol yet. After exchanging hellos and making small talk by the window, Patty produced a corkscrew from between her breasts. She made a big show of twisting the screw into the cork, leveraging the bottle between her thighs, and popping the cork out with a cute little grunt. Soul numbly retrieved some cups--he didn’t own any wine glasses--and watched Patty pour some red wine for them both.

Patty raised her glass high. “So. Here we are! Nervous?”

“Me? Nope,” Soul said. The corners of his mouth twitched. “You?”

“Not me! I want this to happen.” 

“Me too.” They clinked glasses and took a sip of wine. Their sips become gulps, followed by another gulp, and then another. The drinking progressed until each weapon drained their entire cup at once. The liquid was bitter and dry, but Soul really needed the liquid courage. 

When he ran out of wine to drink, Soul searched for something, anything to say. “Uh, you look nice.” 

“When you say things like that, it makes me want to rip your clothes off,” Patty said sweetly. Soul’s face remained stoic, but his mind was reeling. Patty was coming on way too strong. Maka could flirt with him without saying anything. Hell, she didn’t even have to look at Soul to flirt with him. But Patty, she had her enormous eyes trained on him like he was dinner. How much longer could Soul keep this up? Before he panicked, Soul made his move.

“Why don’t we move things to the bedroom?” Soul suggested. 

Patty’s blonde eyebrows shot up to the ceiling. “Really?”

“Do you not want to?” Soul asked with a tinge of hope.

“Of course I want to!” Patty said. “I just--I just want to take my clothes off first.”

Soul pressed his lips together and nodded. “Sounds great. I gotta piss.” He made a beeline for the bathroom and shut himself inside. Maka was sitting on the toilet. 

“Listen, this is getting out of hand,” he whispered. “She isn’t backing down. What happens if she actually--” 

“Calm down, she’s bluffing,” Maka said. 

Meanwhile in the living room, Patty looked out the window and spotted Kid’s apartment across the street. She whipped out her cellphone and hit her speed dial. Liz answered on the first ring.

“He’s not backing down,” Patty said. “He wants me to take off my clothes!”

She heard Kid’s muffled voice on the other line. “Hold the line! We must break him, Patty, we must!” Patty rolled her eyes. Kid was more invested in the outcome of this debacle than she was, and this was all originally Patty’s idea. 

“Keep the action by the window,” Liz said. “Don’t worry sis, you got this. Give him a sneak peek of the girls, know what I mean?” 

Patty nodded and hung up the phone. Inspired, she shimmied down the straps of her dress so her breasts could spill over the neckline. She turned towards the window, and she saw Liz give her a thumbs up. 

Soul finally returned from the bathroom with a fake smile plastered to his face. His jaw dropped slightly when he finally saw Patty and her extreme cleavage, and his eyes darted to the floor. They were definitely much larger than the ones he was used to, and they strained against the fabric of Patty’s dress.

“So these are my breasts, Soul,” Patty said. 

“It’s very nice to meet them,” Soul said with averted eyes. He swallowed hard. “I’m excited to have sex with you,” he said in a monotone. Taking advantage of his discomfort, Patty grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the window. 

At the window, she hesitantly placed her hands on Soul’s broad shoulders. Taking her cue, Soul put one hand on her waist. His other hand reached towards her breast, but at the last minute it stopped and swooped up to her shoulder. 

“We should kiss now,” Patty said. 

“That’s what I usually do,” Soul replied. 

Their faces inched towards each other slowly and hesitantly, and Patty suddenly leapt forward to catch Soul’s reluctant lips. They maintained contact for a moment, Patty’s blue eyes squinted closed and Soul’s red ones wide open, before Soul shoved Patty off of him and jumped backwards. 

“Okay, okay! You win!” Soul said. “I can’t do this!”

Patty pointed at him triumphantly. “Ha! And why not?!”

The words were out of his mouth before Soul could even think of them. “Because I’m in love with Maka!” 

“You’re what?!” 

“Love her,” Soul repeated. “That’s right, I--LOVE--HER! Maka Albarn!” At the mention of her name, Maka shot out of the bathroom like a bullet. She stopped short of leaping straight into Soul’s arms so her deep green eyes could search his face.

“Do you really mean that?” Maka said. “You’ve never said--”

“I was working up to it,” Soul said. Maka grabbed his face and pulled it towards hers. Soul smiled against Maka’s lips, and on the other side of the room Patty started to clap her hands with glee. 

The demon pistol’s phone rang, and she answered. “What’s going on?” Liz asked on the phone.

“They aren’t just banging,” Patty said happily. “They’re in loooooove!”

Before Patty left, Soul shook her hand. She was quite the competitor, and deserved some official props. Once he and Maka were alone, they decided that tomorrow they would call her father and tell him. It was time to stop hiding their relationship in the shadows. If old man Albarn couldn’t handle it, tough. 

Until then though, the lovers decided that they could have at least one more secret tryst before going public.

Across the street, Spirit Albarn entered Kid’s new apartment. It was slick of the grim reaper to buy a secret second home, but as an official Deathscythe with nothing to do, it was his duty to check the apartment out for security reasons. Truth be told, Kid has some good taste. The apartment was incredibly spacious, and the windows were colossal. He was admiring the skyline when he spotted a familiar set of pigtails in a window below.

It was his Maka! There she was, by her apartment window! Spirit pressed his face to the glass. He could see his darling baby whenever he wanted to up here, and she could never get angry with him because she’d never know he was there! He cooed over his daughter a moment longer before that hooligan weapon of hers entered the frame.  
He saw Soul come up behind Maka and wrap his arms around her. The white-haired punk started nipping at Spirit’s little girl’s neck, and his hands began to run up her thigh-- 

“What are you doing?” Spirit said aloud. Soul’s hand was up Maka’s skirt now. Black blades sprouted from all over Spirit’s body. “NO. NOOOOOO. GET OFF MY DAUGHTER!”


	3. Her best friend's bottom.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soul is looking for his motorcycle keys when he discovers an insecure and very naked shadow weapon in his apartment. Inspiration: "Coupling." Soma, Tsustar.

Soul was going home after a long day of Deathscythe meetings and training when he noticed his bike parked on the curb. It had been a while since he took the old girl out. He ran his hand over the leather seat of his bike. Well, the scythe decided, Maka wasn’t going to be home for hours. If his girlfriend was going to be gone all night, Soul might as well spend some quality time with his bright orange beauty. 

He didn’t have his motorcycle keys on him, so Soul hurriedly climbed the stairs to his third floor apartment. In his excitement, Soul didn’t really notice that the door was already unlocked. After a quick investigation of the usual places he kept keys (the kitchen table, the coffee table, the coat rack, the junk drawer, etc) to no avail, Soul whipped out his cell phone. Maybe Maka knew where he put them? 

The scythe realized this plan wouldn’t work when he heard Maka’s ringtone in the room. She left her phone on the bookcase, forgetful woman. He was about to hang up when someone opened the bathroom door and strode into the room.

It was Tsubaki. No, it was Tsubaki _in a towel_. Soul’s brain short-circuited as Tsubaki walked over to Maka’s ringing cellphone. Her long hair was piled on her head, and she had Maka’s cream-colored towel wrapped around her torso. Most amazingly, the shadow weapon did not notice Soul was in the room. She was frowning, trapped somewhere in her own world.

Tsubaki picked up Maka’s cell and put it to her ear. “Hello…. Hello. Who is this?” Soul remained frozen in fear directly behind Tsubaki. She put her free hand on her hip. “Is this some kind of pervert?”

Soul found his voice. “It's Soul.”

Tsubaki brightened. “Soul, hi! It's Tsubaki!”

“Yes,” Soul said. He couldn’t get himself to move, or even speak in anything more than a few syllables at a time. 

“Looking for Maka? She's not here.”

“No.”

“The pipes in my apartment are getting fixed, so Maka said I could come over and shower.” She unceremoniously dropped her towel, revealing her entire backside to the scythe. “That way I wouldn’t have to go all the way to Shibusen.”

In a word, Soul was shocked. He had seen plenty of nudity when Blair still lived with him and Maka, but it didn’t carry the same gravity as seeing Tsubaki, his friend and comrade on the battlefield. He didn’t even freak out this much when he used to catch brief glimpses of Maka, before they began dating, because she was his roommate and on some level it was always okay for them to catch each other nude every blue moon. It never occurred to Soul that he would confront Tsubaki this way, and he was woefully unprepared. His head was screaming for him to get out of there immediately, to escape the sight of his girlfriend’s best friend’s naked body, but then she would know he was there and that he saw. He decided to risk standing still. 

“Right, cause at Shibusen Black Star would just spy on you,” Soul said wryly.

Soul didn’t know what he did, but Tsubaki’s ears turned red and she suddenly dropped the phone. And then, she did the unthinkable. 

Tsubaki bent over at the hips to pick the phone up, giving Soul a completely unobstructed view of a territory he was never supposed to see. It was both exactly like and the complete opposite of looking at a car accident. It was wrong and sickening, yet he couldn’t tear his eyes away. In his indecision, Soul accidentally crossed a line he didn’t even know he was close to. 

She popped back up. “Oh no!”

“What's wrong?” Soul said, pressing his phone into the side of his face.

“I hung up on you,” Tsubaki replied. Her entire body stiffened as she stared at the phone in horror. “You’re standing behind me, aren’t you?”

It was too late to escape now. “I'm more than usually certain of that.”

“I'm going to pick up this towel,” Tsubaki said in a low voice. “You're going to look the other way.”

Soul immediately obeyed, and turned to face the wall. “I'm really sorry about this,” he said. “I was just looking for my keys, to my bike. But I couldn't find them so I called Maka but...oh god, I'm just so sorry about this whole nudity situation.”

“Did you look everywhere?” he heard Tsubaki ask.

Soul hit his forehead against the wall and cursed. There really was no lying at this point. “OK, yeah, I looked. I'm a dude, I’m disgusting, you bent over, I looked. Sue me.”

He could hear Tsubaki fuming behind him. “Did you look everywhere FOR YOUR KEYS?” Soul banged his forehead in the wall a few more times. His cool guy composure was completely unsalvageable at this point. Hell, what was Maka going to think when she heard about this disaster? 

“I’m covered now,” Tsubaki said. Soul turned around uncertainly, and was relieved to see she was indeed toweled again. She stared at him for a moment before blushing deeply. “Could you stop thinking about my, _my bottom_ please?”

Soul’s jaw fell slack. “I’m not thinking about it!”

“Yes you are!” Tsubaki said through her teeth. “It’s still in there! Get rid of it!”

Tsubaki’s pleas accomplished the exact opposite of what she intended. Now Soul could think of nothing but Tsubaki’s curvy, damp backside. He didn’t want this, but his mind wouldn’t cooperate.

“Dammit Tsubaki, you keep bringing it up,” Soul said. “I can't get it out of my head, it's expanding.”

Her arms flew up to her chest in horror. “Expanding? It--It isn’t expanding. I'm just big-boned!”

Soul pinched the bridge of his nose. He needed to find his bike keys and get the hell out of here before things got even more awkward than they already were. Then, he would buy Maka chocolate or something and confess. Sweet, compromising Tsubaki was already accusing him of harboring secret thoughts about her naked ass, and he could only imagine what his hot-tempered meister would do if she thought the same thing. This was a horrible, unlucky misunderstanding that had to be diffused as quickly as possible.

“Soul,” Tsubaki finally said. “I am your girlfriend's best friend. As far as you are concerned, I don’t exist from the neck down.”

Soul nodded vigorously. “Exactly, I agree. I should probably just go.” Tsubaki gave him a solemn smile. Forgetting about his bike, Soul started to walk towards his front door, only to stop suddenly. 

“Hey Tsubaki?” Soul asked. “Just so you know, you’re not big-boned. You look great, like, all the time.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and continued to walk towards the door.

Tsubaki stared at him with her bright, indigo eyes. “Thank you...Do you really mean that?”

Soul was halfway to the door, halfway to freedom, but the insecurity in Tsubaki’s voice made him stop and turn back around. “Uh, sorry?”

Tsubaki’s hands reached for the tucked in corner of her towel. “This is probably a bad idea,” she said. Before Soul had a chance to ask what exactly was a bad idea, Tsubaki slid her towel off her body and threw it to him. The scythe caught it, but after catching the towel in his hands, the rest of his limbs lost the ability to move. The immobilizing shock and awe, it was happening again. There was nothing left for him to imagine, no questions left to ask. She was there, completely bared to him, for no reason he could think of. He could never look Tsubaki, or Maka, in the eyes ever again.

“Well?” Tsubaki asked expectantly. “Am I attractive?”

This was a trap if Soul ever saw one. How was he supposed to respond to that? Tell Tsubaki she wasn’t attractive and hurt her feelings, or tell her she was attractive and risk Maka’s wrath? 

Since Tsubaki was the more immediate threat, Soul decided to avert his eyes and go with the truth and answer in the affirmative. “Uh, yeah,” Soul said, staring at the floor. “You’re really beautiful Tsubaki. Everyone thinks so.”

She advanced upon him with small, uncertain steps. “There's nothing here that a man would find… repulsive?”

Soul stopped being aghast so he could look at the other weapon incredulously. “What the hell gave you that idea? There is nothing repulsive about you.”

“Then why are you looking so frightened?”

Soul remembered who he was talking to, and his eyes jumped back to the floor. “ _Because you're Tsubaki!_ The next time I see you, I’ll be thinking of you naked. It'll be like meeting, I don’t know, Kim Kardashian.”

The shadow weapon looked thoughtful before giving Soul a bright smile. “Kim Kardashian will do just fine! Thank you!” She strode up to Soul and took the towel out of his hands. 

“Bye now.” 

“Um,” Soul said. “What?”

“Would you mind?” She spoke as if she were talking to a child. “I’ve got no clothes on.”

Soul turned on his heel and sped out the door. Inside the apartment, Tsubaki carefully wrapped the towel back around her curvy figure, and tucked a corner into her cleavage. Smiling to herself, she strode confidently into Soul’s room. 

“Well, pretty sure I'm still attractive,” she said. “So I don't think it's _my fault._ ” Black Star was sitting in Soul’s bed, naked, with the sheets bunched up around his hips. He was staring ahead listlessly, miserable and flaccid. The pipes in their apartment weren’t the only ones that were on the fritz.

“This has never happened to me before,” Black Star said. 

“Maybe we shouldn't have been here for the first time.”

“Never ever,” Black Star whimpered in agony. 

“You were nervous. This is something you’ve wanted for a while right?”

“Never…”

Tsubaki sighed and collected her clothes from the floor. She had to get Black Star out before Soul or Maka came back and discovered them, what they attempted to do. Not that the pair actually accomplished doing anything--she had the ninja’s faulty equipment to thank for that. Well, Tsubaki had been working around her meister’s personality quirks for a long time now. Sexual stage fright was just another hurdle for the two to overcome, together. 

Knowing Black Star, he wasn’t going to fail twice.


	4. The Contest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based upon a "Seinfeld" episode. Soul and his buddies compete to see who can last the longest without flogging the log.

“Maka and I caught Spirit,” Soul said. 

 

“Caught Spirit doing what?” Black Star asked.

 

“You know.” The scythe let that statement hang in the air like a humid fog. Kid got it first, wrinkling his nose in horror and retching. Kilik was next, removing his glasses and softly whispering “Duuuuuude.” Black Star took a bite of his burger, and chewed it slowly as he mulled over what Soul said. 

 

It finally clicked. The ninja coughed half-eaten burger bits back onto his plate. “You mean…” Black Star shook his fist, as if he were rolling dice. The message was clear--Maka walked in on her father when he was jacking off to an issue of Glamour.   

 

“There’s a reason I don’t usually come to these man-bonding burger things,” Kid said. “The conversations you have are so juvenile.”

 

“You caught him?” Kilik asked. “Where?”

 

“Maka keeps half of her stuff at her parents’ house. We stop by there all the time...” Soul explained. He rubbed his forehead, mussing the fringe of his snow white hair. “God, she first starts screaming ‘Papa, what are you doing?’ It looked like she was gonna faint, and she started clutching the wall, trying to hold on to it. I caught her, Spirit zipped up, and we bounced the fuck out.”

 

A beat of silence fell between the four boys before Black Star, Kilik, and even Kid started laughing hysterically. Soul stared blankly at his half-eaten cheeseburger, still haunted by the image of Maka’s father masturbating. “I’m never doing it again,” he said in monotone. “I can’t, not after that.”  

 

That shut up the other three boys immediately. “No way!”

 

“Tch, please.”

 

“Ha, like you’re gonna stop!”

 

“You don’t think I can?” Soul asked, offended. His friends shook their heads in unison. “What, do you think you could?”

 

Black Star slapped both hands on the table, shaking their dishes and spilling his own drink. “Is that a challenge? Are you challenging the great Black Star? Put some money where your mouth is, plebe.”

 

The scarring image of Spirit the scythe had burned onto the interior of his eyelids evaporated at the mention of money. To Soul, this seemed like a bet his ninja friend would lose in less than 24 hours. He gave Black Star a large, toothy grin. “You’re on! One hundred bucks.” The two friends slapped their hands together and shook on it.

 

“I want in,” Kilik said. He fist-bumped Black Star and Soul to seal the deal. “I don’t live with any hot girls like you guys. This is the easiest money I’ll make in my life.”

 

“I’ll throw in as well.” 

 

Soul, Black Star, and Kilik gaped at the grim reaper, who had been sitting quietly at the end of the booth. “That’s not fair,” Black Star said. “You’re nonsexual. We might already be dead before you jack it again.”

 

“Asexual,” Kid corrected. He narrowed his gold eyes. “I’ll bet one hundred and fifty. Is that fair?” The grim reaper held out both of his little fingers, and the other boys took turns clasping pinkies with him. They agreed to operate on an honor’s system, because there was no dishonor in the realms of gambling and masturbation. As the boys went their separate ways, each already felt like their wallets were a few hundred dollars heavier.

 

Let the sexual frustration begin.

 

Two days later, the scythe was digging through his hamper in the living room. Soul put off doing his laundry (again), so he was searching for his musty smelling basketball shorts from last week. He was supposed to play some b-ball with the guys, but he couldn’t play in jeans. 

 

That, at least, was what Soul was telling himself. What really made him put his face in his own sweat-stained clothes was the sight of his meister’s taut nipples through the fabric of her thin tank top. The AC was blasting, and Maka never really felt the need to wear a bra these days, so who really could blame him?  Now Maka was reading in her room, the shower was roaring in the background, and Soul set to work killing his own erection. No way was he going to be the first one out, not when he was versing the perverted Black Star in a game of sexual endurance. 

 

When Kilik showed up at the apartment with a basketball in hand, Soul was back in control and ready to go. In the brief moment that Kilik was actually inside the apartment, the shower stopped and Blair stepped out of the bathroom. Soul did not react to the damp, naked kitty as she sauntered passed the boys without a towel. At this point, he was thoroughly desensitized to Blair’s slamming body and coy innuendo. 

 

The same could not be said for Kilik. After excusing himself to use the bathroom, the meister slapped five twenties on Soul’s coffee table.

 

“Are you serious?” Soul asked. “That fast?”

 

“Worth it.”

 

And then there were three. 

 

In the days that followed, Black Star made it his mission to check up on his competitors almost every hour. Soul was watching Stein dissect another animal when the ninja scooted next to him and whispered. 

 

“Are you still master of your domain?” the ninja said cryptically. Soul glanced at his meister, who was sitting next to him on the other side. She was absorbed in her note-taking, but he couldn’t be too careful.

 

“I’m king of the castle,” Soul answered. 

 

Black Star casually put his hands behind his head and leaned his chair backwards. He looked up at Kid, who was sitting a row above them. 

 

The grim reaper leaned forward before Black Star even had a chance to catch his attention. “Lord of the manor,” Kid whispered. “You?”

 

“A god among mortals.” 

 

By the end of the day, a flustered Death the Kid handed Soul and Black Star his portion of the pot, head hung in shame. The two guys stared at Kid in shock. They never expected Kid to ever give in to the sins of the flesh, not this quickly. 

 

“The lord is dead!” Black Star exclaimed. “Why did you do it? It must have been hot, to get you going.”

 

Tears budded from the corner of Kid’s eyes. “I--I do it every eight days.” He gripped his forehead with a clammy hand. “If I didn’t do it today on schedule, I would be no better than an animal. Don’t you understand? An abomination!” 

 

And then there were two. 

 

After the ninth day, Soul began to have trouble sleeping. A single thought of his meister’s name, and Soul’s mind would descend into a downward spiral of pornographic fantasies starring the girl sleeping in the other room. That she was only one paper-thin wall away was maddening. He couldn’t sit still, he wanted to claw at the walls of his bedroom like a tomcat, and his nose started squirting blood all over his pillowcase. 

 

The daylight hours were equally unbearable. Soul started snapping at his friends, yelling at strangers in the street. He got a severe nosebleed after watching Maka eat a popsicle, and could do nothing but sputter excuses while Kilik and Kid laughed knowingly.

 

On the twelfth day, Soul experienced the most painful case of morning wood in his life. It throbbed in his boxers, sending sharp, excruciating pangs of desire up his torso. He desperately wanted to give in, to shut himself in the bathroom and achieve sweet relief, but Soul couldn’t lose, not to Black Star. 

 

He was master of his domain. Hell, Soul had been repressing his sexual feelings for his meister for ages. There was no one more in control of their domain than he.

 

There was a soft knocking on his bedroom door. “Hey Soul?” he heard Maka ask. “Do you have a clean towel in there? Can I borrow it?”

 

“Uh sure,” he said, opening the door. Maka was wearing a tank top and running shorts, drenched in sweat. Her bangs were plastered to her forehead, and loose strands in her pigtails curled in little wisps. Maka must have gone running again. He numbly retrieved his extra towel and handed it to his meister, who lightly touched his arm as she thanked him. 

 

He lazily swung the door closed and waited for the sound of the shower. When it roared to life, Soul reached for his lotion without hesitation. Seeing Maka slightly undone, regardless of whether she was sweaty, covered in blood spatter, or her shirt was askew, was always his undoing. One day, it was his firmest hope that he would be the one to ruffle her clothing and dishevel her hair. Now that he had some fresh fantasy fuel, the scythe could not help himself.

 

And then there was one. 

 

The triumph of winning the bet almost outweighed the suffering of the last 12 days. Almost. After Black Star collected his earnings in the hallways of Shibusen, his strength officially ran out.

 

And then there were none. 

 

 

  
  



	5. The One With All the Poker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soul and the guys attempt to teach Maka and the girls how to play poker. The competitive card games grow intense after Maka and Soul go head to head in a poker standoff. Based on a 'Friends' episode.

“Why don’t you play poker with any of your girl friends?” Maka asked, ignoring the awkward placement of ‘girl’ and ‘friend’ in the same sentence. “What, is poker some sexist guy-only thing? Like, it’s called poker so only guys can play?”

Recently, the scythe meister had been in a funny mood. First, it was the cleaning. The blonde had scrubbed every inch of the apartment, ironed all of her clothes, ironed all of Soul’s clothes, and attacked Blair with a lint roller. Then, the baking. A freshly-baked sheet cake, upon which Maka scrawled “WELCOME HOME MAMA” in blue frosting, was sitting patiently in their fridge.

Lastly, Maka’s old ‘men are vile creatures who are not to be trusted’ mentality came back with vengence. All of this caused by the visit of one Kami Albarn, absent mother extraordinaire.  

And the woman wasn’t even coming until tomorrow.

“Nah,” Soul said with a shrug. He had never really thought about why his poker night was populated only by guys. “We just don’t know any girls who know how to play poker.”

Before Soul could even blink, Maka was upon him. “That is a stupid excuse!” Maka said, jabbing her weapons’ arms. “That is such a typical guy response!”

Soul swatted away Maka’s probing fingers and rubbed his arm. “Do you even know how to play?”

“No. But you could teach me.”

“No!”

An hour later, the pair was sitting, squished, at a round table alongside Black Star, Tsubaki, Death the Kid, and the Thompson sisters. They all sat cross-legged on the floor of Black Star’s apartment, and playing cards lay scattered across the table. Maka stared at her cards with determination while Soul held the deck and attempted to explain the rules.

“So now you draw cards…” Soul said.

“But I don’t need any, because I have a straight!” Tsubaki announced, waving her poker hand in the air. The girls congratulated their friend while Soul put his face in his hands.

“I just need two,” Liz said. “Um, the ten of spades and the six of clubs.”

“Hey!” Black Star said. “You can’t, you can’t do that--”

“Here!” Maka said, reaching across the table to hand Liz one of her cards. “I don’t need it because I’m going for fours.” Liz accepted the card gratefully and added it to her hand.

Soul strummed the poker deck with his fingers before pressing on. “Ok, so at this point the dealer--”

“We got it, we got it,” Maka snapped. She plucked everyone’s practice cards from their hands and shoved them towards her partner. “Let’s play for real now. High stakes. Big bucks.”

“Are you sure?” Kid asked dryly. He held up a couple discarded playing cards between two fingers. “Patty just gave up two jacks because they looked unhappy.”

“I’m ready!” Patty chirped.

With a sigh, Soul shuffled the deck and began to deal the first hand.

Maka never realized exactly how good her weapon was at poker. The perpetual poker face she thought she knew so well was replaced by an impenetrable stone wall, one that she couldn’t interpret no matter how hard she tried. The actual gameplay of poker was also more confusing and frustrating than she initially realized. Her guy friends were lying to her right and left--lying straight to her face!--and her heart sank as she lost more and more chips.

The worst, most humiliating part was that the player collecting all of her money was Soul, her supposed partner in crime. The scythe smiled like a knife as he counted out his chips.

“Looks like you owe me fifteen big ones, Albarn,” he said. Soul wasn’t even hiding his smugness. “If you’re going to play poker with me, don’t expect me to be nice. This is payback for all the chops.”

“So typical,” Maka muttered as she counted out the money. “Ooooh, I’m a man. Ooooh, I have to win money in order to exert power over women.” She grudgingly handed her money to Soul across the poker table. Their hands touched for a brief moment, and Soul gave her a cocky wink before snatching away his winnings. On her side of the table, Maka fumed.

When Black Star reached to collect the deck, Patty grabbed him by the wrist.

“This is not over!” Patty said with a feral look in her blue eyes. She kept a tight grip on the ninja’s wrist. “We will play you again, and we will win, and you will lose, and you will beg, and we will laugh, and we will take everything you own until there is nothing left. Deal another hand!”

The endless rounds of poker continued into the evening, and the girls steadily learned to keep up. Not every round ended in humiliation and loss. During one hand, Black Star attempted to play a straight after confusing a three for an eight, resulting in the most hilarious loss in poker history. In another, Tsubaki succeeded in taking the pot with only a two-pair. Eventually, the one person who kept consistently losing was Maka.

After the other five folded, Soul placed his poker cards on the table and crossed his arms--royal flush. For the first time since they started playing, Maka’s green eyes widened in excitement. She laid out her own cards--four sixes. That wiped the grin right off her weapon’s face.

“I won! I actually won!” Maka exclaimed. Her lanky arms scrambled to gather her winnings on the table, making a special effort to keep the chips she won from her weapon separate. She wanted the whole group to see how many chips she had taken from him, even if her winnings were meager at best.

Now that she had tasted victory, Maka became ruthless. In the next hand, she continued to raise the bet in 50 cent increments, bluffing through her ass that she had a hand no one could beat. After only two raises, everyone else declared they were out. The last one standing was Soul, who reluctantly folded. Maka greedily gathered more chips, adding even more to her ‘Soul pile.’

Soul’s poke face was starting to slip, revealing his aggravation. “You really can’t stand to lose can you?” Maka said to her weapon. Now that her confidence was back, trash-talking came more naturally to her. “Your whole face is getting red.”

The scythe stared at her, grim-faced. “I’m not losing,” Soul said with gritted teeth. “Let’s not talk about losing. Just deal the next hand."

It was finally Maka’s turn to assume the coveted role of dealer, and she eagerly started handing out the cards. They were just about to get started when her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. She saw the caller ID and leapt to her feet.

“Mama! How are you? I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until--” Maka’s chipper voice trailed off as she listened on the phone, and walked a few feet away from the table. The others chatted amongst themselves as they organized their poker hands and chips. “Uh huh.” Soul looked up at his cards, alarmed by the quietness of his meister’s voice. “No, no I understand. Don’t be silly, I’m fine--” The others caught on, and the room became silent. The girls started to cast worried glances to each other, mouthing questions like “Is she ok?” to each other.

“No I’m not upset, what you do is very important,” Maka said with a wavering voice. Her face was a map of devastation, and Soul dropped his own poker face to knit his eyebrows together. Everyone knew how much this upcoming visit from her mom meant to her, but none witnessed her excitement first hand like Soul did 

“But--but you know, if you schedule opens up soon, we can still…” The hopefulness in Maka’s voice plummeted. “Okay. I’ll tell Papa, he’ll understand. We can talk again soon, right?”

Maka quietly said her good byes and I love yous to her mother before finally hanging up. She slowly walked back to the table and say back down. Her friends did not know what to say.   

“Sorry Maka,” Black Star blurted. He reached out to give her a friendly punch on the arm, but Tsubaki caught his fist and shook her head.

Careful to appear nonchalant, Soul broke the rules of poker by reaching his soul out to her. When playing poker amongst weapons and meisters, resonance was considered a form of cheating. This once, he could bend the rules. The scythe could feel waves of her disappointment and turmoil emanating from her bereaved soul, but she rejected his presence before he could initiate resonance. Soul never took anything that happened during poker personally, but finding that Maka did not want his comfort or the touch of his soul hurt.

“Um, where were we?” Maka asked with a thick voice. “Oh, five card draw, uh, jacks or better. Nothing wild, everybody ante.”

“Maka,” Kid said softly. “We don’t have to play anymore if you don’t--”

“Yes we do,” she responded curtly. Liz and Patty folded, Black Star and Tsubaki checked, and Soul and Kid threw in fifty cents. Without glancing at her cards, Maka reached into her wallet.

“I see you fifty cents and I raise you…” Maka withdrew a bill from her wallet and tossed it into the middle. “Five bucks.”

“I thought the limit was fifty cents!” Tsubaki said.

“Well I’d like to bet five bucks,” Maka said. She looked defiantly at her friends. “Does anyone have a problem with that?”

Everyone muttered no and immediately folded. Soul stared at his meister across the table for a moment before laying his cards down. “I fold.”

Maka was suddenly livid. “What do you mean you fold? What ever happened to not being nice? To paying me back for the maka chops? I mean, where you just full of it or something?”

The others scooted away from the table, leaving only Soul and Maka sitting, staring at each other from across the table of discarded playing cards and scattered poker chips. Frowning, the scythe picked his hand back up, retrieved two bucks from his pocket, and threw them into the fray. Soul was back in.

Maka dealt another card to Soul, and she took two. He bet ten dollars, she raised it twenty.He threw in twenty-five, and Maka’s face blanched when she looked in her wallet. 

“Tsubaki, hand me your purse.” The shadow weapon tossed her purse to Maka without hesitation, and the meister added twelve more dollars to the pot. Liz scooted over the her meister and thrust her hand into his jacket pocket. Kid yelped as Liz withdrew his wallet and handed Maka ten more dollars for the pot.

Soul pressed his lips together as he stared into his own empty wallet. “Black Star, I’m a little shy.”

“Dude, it’s fine,” Black Star said. “You can ask me. What?” Soul stared, dumbfounded by the depths of the ninja’s stupidity. Kid audibly sighed before motioning for Liz to give him back his wallet. The grim reaper handed Soul a crisp twenty.

The seven friends stared at the enormous pot that lay unclaimed on the table. The girls vs. guys poker face off was about to come to a dramatic close, but no one was willing to initiate it.

“I call your twenty two dollars,” Soul finally said. “What do you got?”

Green eyes stared into red, and Maka broke into a huge grin. She laid out her cards in one fluid movement. “Full house.”

Soul chewed his bottom lip as he stared at his cards. The others were holding their breath, waiting for the scythe to make a move.

He finally flashed Maka a crooked smile. “You got me,” he said, placing his cards face down.

Liz and Patty jumped up and screamed in delight. They hoisted a dumbfounded Maka off the floor, and they began to sing at the top of their lungs. Tsubaki hopped to her feet to join them, and the girls formed a messy conga line. The four sang and danced into the kitchen, leaving the three boys staring at the pile of money they just lost.

“This sucks,” Black Star said. “I thought you had them.”

“Sometimes you don’t have the cards,” Soul said.

Black Star tried to peek at Soul’s folded hand, and the scythe shoved him away. Though he had been thoroughly beaten by a girl who only just learned how to play poker that day, Soul did not feel any disappointment or loser’s regret. All he could feel was the surge of elation and happiness bursting out of Maka’s soul.

  
  


   

 


	6. The One Where Maka is Pregnant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maka is eight past her due date, and she believes there is only one way to induce pregnancy. Soul, however, has some reservations. Based on a 'Friends' episode.

The day before her due date, Maka gathered all of her friends in her apartment. She thanked them for getting her through her pregnancy, and though she was beyond excited for the next part, the meister admitted that she was really going to miss being pregnant.

 

Eight days after her due date passed and no baby, she was groaning in the doctor’s office. Despite blasting the AC at home and wearing next to nothing, Maka could not escape the sweltering heat boiling beneath her skin. Worse yet, she was gassy. Really gassy.

 

“Soouul” she groaned. The meister was exhausted from waddling to the doctor’s office in 100 degree weather. Death City’s temperature and endless hills were not kind to pregnant people. “I have never felt so awful in my entire liiiiife.” 

 

Soul, the father of the baby that refused to exit Maka’s uterus, was also feeling uncomfortable. “You know, we should ask the doctor if she even knows how to deliver a baby that’s half human, half pure evil.”

 

“Don’t joke like that,” Maka said. She fiddled with the loose shirt covering her rotund belly. “It’s only half evil until it’s out.”

 

Maka’s phone lit up. Tsubaki was texting her for another update. For some reason, Tsubaki and Patty started to touch base with Maka everyday to check on her pregnancy. While Maka found their distinct interest in her pregnancy a little strange, she was glad to have someone to talk to who understood the struggle of woman.

 

The doctor finally arrived. Maka was glad that she had an honest and caring soul because it meant the doctor would probably prescribe her some new drugs, if wheedled enough. As the doctor asked Maka some preliminary questions, Soul squeezed her hand. 

 

Pregnant Maka, at first, was really fun. When she uncertainly broke the news that she was pregnant, she glowed like the angel Soul always said she was. Her breasts soon grew twice their original size, and during her fourth month Maka’s libido went into overdrive. But around the seventh month mark, Soul started getting impatient. He wasn’t going to be ready for fatherhood until the baby was in his arms. Why draw out the anxiety and fear for so long? Moreover, Maka’s short fuse had only frayed since entering her last trimester. If she didn’t give birth soon, Soul feared he might be too concussed from the endless makachops to even hold his kid.  

 

Eight days overdue, the love of his life had become a hormonal monster and the baby he was so excited for was stubbornly staying put. This madness had to come to an end. 

 

“So, eight days passed your due date,” the doctor said. “I’m guessing you’re feeling a little uncomfortable.”

 

“Just a tad” Maka said with a twitching eyebrow. 

 

“You are about 80% effaced, so you’re on your way. If you are getting anxious, there are some ways to speed things along.”

 

“We will try anything,” Soul blurted. 

 

The doctor chuckled. “There are a lot of home remedies that are actually very effective. There’s an herbal tea you could drink, eating spicy good helps, sometimes just taking a long walk…”

 

“Done and done.”

 

“And there’s the most effective method,” the doctor said. She frankly looked at Maka. “Sex.”

 

Maka smiled and looked expectantly at Soul. The weapon’s jaw hung open, and color drained from his face until it was as stark white as his hair. 

 

Later that night, Soul and Maka were invited to Tsu and Black Star’s. It was just as well, since the couple wasn’t speaking and they desperately needed a buffer in order to eat dinner in peace. When they entered their friends’ home, the air itself became icy and stagnant. Whatever the soon-to-be parents were fighting about, there was no makeup in sight.

 

After helping Maka sit down at the kitchen table and handing her an iced tea, Tsubaki was visibly disappointed when Maka reported that the baby might not be born for several more days.

 

“Still?” Tsubaki squeaked. Black Star stirred pasta in the kitchen and Soul stood apart, leaning against the counter on the other side of the room. “Is there nothing you can do to induce labor?”

 

In the other room, Soul responded with a growl. “We already tried all the usual remedies.”

 

Maka let out a loud, dry laugh. “Yeah, we’ve tried everything. Except the tried and true method.” Black Star paused his stirring to glance at Maka. “Sex,” she finally said. “If we had sex, this baby would be born today.” Maka spoke now through gritted teeth, her volume steadily increased as her anger bubbled forth. “But SOMEONE doesn’t want to do that because he says it will OPEN a CAN of WOOOORRRMMMMS!”

 

Soul groaned. “God you’re blowing this out of proportion...”

 

Maka ignored him. “My boyfriend has no problem  knocking me up , but I’m never going to have the damn thing because he’s too squeamish to  finish the job !” 

 

Black Star retched and looked at Soul with disgust. “I think I lost some respect for you,” the ninja said to his friend. “Put her out of her misery already.”

 

Tsubaki gently took Maka’s hand and spoke with a calm, soothing voice. “Maka, if this will really help you give birth, today, you can borrow Black Star. Black Star is good!” 

 

Maka looked at her friend balefully. She was surprised when Black Star, still stirring the pasta, responded in the affirmative. “Yo, I’m down.” he said. Soul’s expression shifted from shock to affronted anger, prompting Black Star to just shrug. “Someone’s gotta do it. Think of it as a divine blessing for your new family.”  

 

“I don’t--I don’t think I want to do that,” Maka stammered, exchanging an alarmed glance with Soul.

 

“You sure?” Tsubaki pressed. “That baby’s head isn’t getting any smaller, Maka.”

 

“What is the matter with you?” Maka asked. “Why do you care so much about when I have this baby? Why today?”

 

Tsubaki opened and closed her mouth several times before bursting forward with the truth. “Patty and I keep betting on when you will have the baby. And I keep losing!”

 

Maka and Soul’s collective reaction of anger and disgust was enough to bridge their differences, at least for a few hours. When they returned to their own apartment, the couple sat down with a another bag of jalapenos. Soul hoped that if Maka just kept eating spicy food, labor had to start eventually. 

 

Maka’s mouth was full of peppers, but there still no signs of labor. “We tried all of this Soul,” Maka said despondently. “It’s not working.”

 

Soul’s eyes watered as he swallowed another pepper. “How the hell can you eat this hot stuff and not feel like you’re dying?” 

 

“I am feeling nothing.” Maka watched Soul gulp down a glass of ice water with keen interest. “Speaking of hot, it turns me on when you do that.”

 

Her boyfriend slammed the glass back on the table. “This is insane. I’m not going to have sex with you just so you’ll go into labor.”  

 

“Just think of me as--as a ketchup bottle,” Maka continued. “Sometimes, you just have to bang on the end so something can come out.”

 

“I love it when you talk dirty to me,” Soul said in monotone.

 

With no small amount of struggle, Maka stood up from her chair and dropped a pepper on the ground. “Whoops,” she said with faux innocence. “Let me bend over and pick that up for you.” She braced herself against the table and slowly began her descent, bending her knees and reaching towards the ground. The distance between her hand and the pepper on the ground seemed to double, and her forehead began to perspire. The dome protruding from her torso weighed her whole body down like an anvil, and she gripped the table to keep balance as she bent over lower. 

 

She suddenly released a pained gasp and Soul was at her side. “Okay, you win.” he said. Soul helped Maka get back to her feet and kissed her, hard. “I’m getting that baby out of you!”

 

They kissed once more, and when they broke apart Maka looked at him with satisfaction. “So I think my water just broke,” she informed him. “Do you know what to do?”

 

Soul nodded absently, too stunned to move or let go of his girlfriend. “We’re having a baby.” The words were a revelation.

 

Maka grinned as warmth and love flooded her abdomen, and for a brief moment, the thousands of aches, pains, and stresses that plagued her these past few days were lifted from her shoulders. “Yeah, we really are.”

  
  



	7. I Love You, Maka Albarn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluffy One-Shot I published on Tumblr and FF.Net but forgot to move here.
> 
> Graduation is imminent, and Spartoi is having one last bash to celebrate their new beginnings. Maka decides to use this event as an opportunity to tell Soul how she really feels, but Soul has something of his own to get off his chest.

They all planned on simply drinking sparkling cider and reminiscing about the past, but air itself changed when Kid cleared his throat and captured the room’s attention. It was a private party hosted by the young Lord Death in celebration of the graduation and disbandment of Spartoi, in the very same ballroom Medusa used to trap Shibusen students all those years ago, so a speech was inevitable. Instead of proceeding with his usual pedantics, Kid surprised everyone by hamstringing their hearts.

 

With a wavering voice, Kid told the room that he had come to terms with the fact that all of his friends would die one day. The fleeting nature of humanity, the impermanence of friendship, these were things he had to accept as Lord Death. It was their destiny to die, and his destiny to guide their souls to the next life. But even so, the grim reaper said with a smile, their faces would guide him for a millenia. The things they accomplished together as Spartoi taught Kid everything he knew about compassion, love, and how to feel human. Knowing that, Kid could not feel any sadness. Only joy and eternal thanks that he got to know them at all.

 

There was definitely no alcohol in the cider, but one by one the members of Spartoi began offering up their own heartfelt speeches. What spurred them forward was the realization that everything was going to be different after tonight. A whole slew of them--Ox, Havar, Kim, Jackie--were taking a break from Shibusen to go to college. Liz was sticking around in Death City to be with Kid, and Patty was going to take her SATs. Black Star and Tsubaki were going back to Japan to start their own dojo, Kilik and the twins were going to be stationed on the other side of the country. The whole team was going their separate ways, and this could be their last chance to say what they needed to say.

 

It was during Ox’s lengthy speech that Maka attempted to gather her thoughts. She should tell him. The time to say things that have always been left unsaid was now, and goddamit Maka Albarn was going to tell her weapon that she was in love with him. The thought of even saying those words caused a fire to bloom in Maka’s chest and her hands to ache for his touch.

 

The scythe had been strangely distant lately, but as she glanced at her weapon’s passive face, Maka had a sinking feeling that she knew why. A couple days before, Maka casually snooped around in Soul’s room and had discovered a letter from some place called Julliard. It said that he was accepted into their music program--congratulations! Maka’s heart had plummeted to the floor. He was going to leave her. Soul never said he was applying to anything, but now that he was accepted there wasn’t much Maka could say about it. He helped her achieve her dream to create a Deathscythe more powerful than her father and to become a more skilled meister than her mother. Who was she to stand in the way of his dreams?

 

She couldn’t wait any longer. When Ox finally stopped talking, Maka pushed her way to the front. This was going to be like ripping off a bandaid--lightning quick, sharply painful, but immensely gratifying. Tell him the truth, gage his reaction, escape. Admitting that she was in love with Soul was more likely to chase the weapon away than to convince him to stay, but she had to do it. Maka couldn’t let these feelings simmer in her soul forever, and she certainly couldn’t watch him leave and spend the rest of her life obsessed with what ifs.

 

She started off by thanking her friends and describing her favorite memories, but her mind was on one person. Soul was standing in the middle of their friends, not in the front but not in the back, slouched, watching her closely. She met his languid red eyes and he smiled at her with encouragement.

 

“And Soul…”

 

The sight of his smile caused her to freeze. The bandaid approach wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t say it in front of all these people. It would embarrass him to be put in the spotlight so suddenly, and it would humiliate her when he delivered that inevitable rejection in front of their best friends. A different tactic was in order.

 

“I value your friendship more than anything,” Maka said quickly. She looked to the ground, nerves getting the best of her even now. “I don’t think I would have achieved anything without you by my side. We’re a weird pair,  but I can’t even imagine being without my partner. I--I know we’re celebrating new beginnings and the end of an era and all, but our story isn’t over yet, right?”

 

She looked up, hoping to find his smiling face in the crowd. But he wasn’t anywhere. That familiar white mop of hair had completely vanished.

 

“Oh my god,” Maka said out loud. Her cheeks flushed with anger. _“Where the hell did that idiot go?_ ”

 

She found him on the balcony, swirling his cider in his glass as he stared over the railing. Soul saw her stomping towards him, and he quickly wiped a downcast look from his face. Maka did not even try to hide her fury.

 

“Soul,” Maka said, pounding her little fists into Soul’s arm. “You left! You left in the middle of my speech! I was talking about you, you jerk!”

 

Soul winced and clutched his upper arm. “Geez woman, I got the gist.”

 

This made Maka want to wail on him even more. “The gist? How did you know I wasn’t going to make some big announcement huh? What would you have done if I said I was getting married and moving to Hawaii, and you weren’t there to hear it?” Soul raised one eyebrow at her and smirked. “Lucky for you I didn’t say that…”. She crossed her arms. “But still, it kind of hurts to be abandoned like that, in front of everybody we know.”

 

Soul’s infuriating smirk slipped a little. “I didn’t think you would notice me gone.” Mussing the hair on the back of his head, Soul added, “I just wanted to get some air.”   

 

“Well you better take a deep breath Soul Eater, because we are going back inside, and you are going to give the most tear-jerking speech ever.”

 

Maka turned on her heel to leave, but stopped short when she didn’t hear her weapon following. He remained rooted on the balcony, shaking his head.

 

The agonized look in Soul’s eyes made the meister grow suspicious. “You--you weren’t planning on hiding out here and not giving a speech _at all_ were you?”

 

“I was actually kind of hoping…” Maka made a move to chop him over the head, and Soul frantically blocked her. “Whoah, stop! You know I don’t do public speaking if I can avoid it.”

 

“But, don’t you have anything to say to all of our friends? Something to get off your--”

 

“No.”

 

That single word hung in the air, and Maka felt the wind carry her pigtails off her shoulders. In saying nothing, Soul had said everything. He didn’t tell her about this Julliard thing, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell her any of the things she desperately hoped he would. Maka swallowed the lump that materialized at the back of her throat, and she mumbled something about going back to join the others so Soul could get that air he wanted.

 

Her eyes were trained on the ground as she walked away, but she was stopped by the lightest touch on her wrist. “Stay,” Soul said. He took her head and lead her back to the balcony. They both looked out at the Death City skyline and the black moon glowered above them. It was beautiful in a haunting way, as if it were just a mirage that would fade if she looked away.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, Maka noticed Soul down his entire glass of cider in one gulp and shove it to the side. “Look, I don’t have anything to say to everybody, to say to them, but I did want to talk to you about something,” Soul said.

 

“Well what is it?” Maka asked, but she already knew. He was going to tell her about Julliard, about the new life plans he cooked up for himself while she was too self-absorbed to notice. The end of their story, it was here.

 

Soul grimaced. “This is a bad idea,” he said quietly to himself. To Maka, he said “This sentimental stuff is harder than it looks, and it’s not going to sound great, so just promise to listen and not chop me for ten minutes.” Without a word, Maka nodded.

 

Realizing that Maka wasn’t going to say anything or chop him, Soul rubbed his hands on his pant legs. He gripped the balcony railing as if he were overcome by a case of mild vertigo. After opening and closing his mouth twice, he finally began.

 

“Everyone inside keeps talking about how much they love each other, but I don’t really get how everyone can just throw that around so easily,” Soul said. He thought hard for a moment before continuing. “Love isn’t an emotion. It’s a choice you make everyday, in almost everything you do. I know you believe all that destiny crap, but I prefer free will because it’s more real. Just saying.”

 

This actually earned him a chuckle from Maka. She was leaning on the rail now, craning to watch the scythe’s face as he spoke. Meanwhile, Soul started to actively avoid her gaze, staring directly at the black moon overhead.

 

“I don’t know when I decided to love you, Maka” he said. “Maybe it was in Baba Yaga castle. Or even earlier than that, in Italy. Or maybe it was some day in class when I was bored and I noticed how--how pretty you looked when you were getting into the lesson. I guess it doesn’t matter, because it’s a decision I’ve never stopped making. Even if I wanted to stop loving you, I don’t think I could. It’s a part of me now, and I’d never give it up. So now I’m saying it. I  love you, Maka Albarn.”

 

Maka tried to interject, to release the fireworks that had begun exploding in her belly, but Soul charged forward. “Just, let me finish. This is all really inconvenient, since you never asked for this and I can’t take it back. But it’s cool, because I’m giving you an out. I got into this school back east, and I figured I’ll spend a semester there, or even a year, while you figured out what you wanted. Friendship is a choice too, and though I’m the coin that always comes up heads, you still get to decide whether you even want my hopeless ass hanging around. It sucks, pining for someone who will never want me I mean, but it would hurt way worse if I was making you uncomfortable.”

 

Soul finally dragged his eyes away from the moon and to his meister’s face. “You don’t even have to decide now,” he pleaded. His declaration of love had transformed into a negotiation. “We can figure out some code of conduct or something for the summer, before I leave, then you can have all the time you want. I don’t want to ruin what we’ve got, and I think if we just figured out a system--why are you staring at me like that?”

 

She felt like she had just spotted a double rainbow, and Maka was sure she looked like it too. Not only had Soul just performed a fullblown monologue, but he said all of the things Maka had planned on saying to him fifteen minutes ago. The absurdity of it all and the unadulterated happiness it sparked made Maka delirious. She clutched her sides as giggles erupted from her throat, leaving her unable to speak or even breathe.

 

Her laughter sent Soul staggering backwards, wounded. Afraid that he might leap off the balcony or bolt inside, Maka rushed forward and threw her arms around her weapon. She laughed into his chest until tears budded at the corners of her eyes, all while a bewildered Soul held her shaking shoulders.

 

Maka gasped for breath between giggles. “Sorry Soul, this is just so--I can’t even believe it. I thought I was the one who has been pining for you all this time.” She rested her chin on his chest and tightened her arms around him. Everything she could see, feel, and smell was Soul Eater, and there was no force on Earth that could pry her off of him.  

 

Now it was Soul who looked like he was staring at a double rainbow. The partners were both very winded, him from speaking and her from laughing, so it was without any communication that Soul leaned forward and Maka rose to meet him on her tiptoes. Their lips did not immediately fit together like pieces of puzzle, nor did they suddenly know how exactly  to position their noses, but as far as first kisses went, it was pretty fantastic. It represented the end of an era and a new beginning, one where the partners could finally stop holding back and set their souls free.   

 

When they broke apart, Maka whispered “I choose that you don’t leave. Don’t go to Julliard.”

 

The dopey grin on Soul’s face was replaced with suspicion. “Julliard? How did--you read my mail!”

 

“Yep. What are you going to do about it?”

  
“I have a few ideas--"

 

“WHOOOO YEAHHHHH KISS HER AGAIN.”

 

Soul and Maka jumped at the sound of Black Star’s booming voice. They spun around, and were shocked to see all of their friends standing there. Horror flashed across Soul’s face, and Maka realized that their friends were probably watching all along. For all of his efforts to avoid it, this lazy weapon of hers made a grandiose speech in public after all.

 

They had just shrugged off their last lingering regret and spoken the truth of their souls, so there was only one thing to do. Soul picked up his meister and kissed her again. 

 

 


	8. Bang Bang, Have a Nice Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One-Shot focused on the Thompson sisters, pre-manga.
> 
> Ten year-old Patty doesn't have a regular family, but it's still family nonetheless. When their mother's hustling puts the sisters at risk, Patty has to grow up fast in order to survive on the streets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally inspired by a scene from "The Wasteland" by Stephen King. I attribute the mantra Patty repeats to him.

A bright pink pellet of light impacted the brick wall, sending another chunk of mortar crashing to the asphalt. Patty Thompson, ten, wide-eyed, and nervous, swore under her breath. The six coke cans her mother placed on a wooden post remained undamaged. Three shots into her first lesson, and Patty failed to even graze the metal.

Luckily for her, Patty’s gun had unlimited ammunition. 

“Quit shaking me so much,” Liz said, her metallic voice echoing through the nose of the gun. Patty braced her wrist with her left hand to steady her grip, to no avail.

“Again,” said a husky, feminine voice. To her right, Patty could see her mother slouching in her periphery. Virginia “Gin” Thompson, known to most as the best bang on the block, flicked away the butt of her spent cigarette and ground it beneath the toe of her boot. “Repeat the whole thing again. It’ll help you focus.”

Breathing in, Patty raised her pistol again and trained her baby blue eyes on the coke cans.

“I don’t aim with my hand, I aim with my eyes,” she recited. Patty squeezed the trigger—miss.

“I don’t shoot with my hand,” Patty started. She searched for the correct phrasing. “I shoot with my mind.” She imagined the cross hairs of her mind and soul honing on her target and fired. Miss.

Patty tried to concentrate harder. Shooting wasn’t a hobby, not in her fucked up family. If she couldn’t manage to hit even one can, she would never live it down.

“I don’t kill with my gun,” she said. Patty pulled the trigger early, and as she watched a flash of pink hurtle towards the cans, she knew it would be a hit. “I kill with my heart.”

The bullets struck one of the cans with a satisfying _plink_ , causing it to fall off its post. Patty broke into a wide grin and pumped both fists in the air. “Yay! I did it! I hit one!” Her energy and delight got the better of her, and Patty began to chant and dance in place. The gun in her right hand dissolved into pink light, and Liz shifted back into human form. The thirteen year-old was dressed in a tight V-neck and baggy jeans. Her left leg, from her foot to slightly below her knee, was encased in a bright pink cast.

The tallest of the three Thompson women, Liz silenced her younger sister by using her head as an armrest.

“Calm the hell down, you only hit one out of six,” Liz said, causing Patty to puff out her cheeks. “Anyways, I don’t get why you’re teaching  _her_  so soon. She’s way younger than I was when you taught me to shoot.”

Their mother, dressed in a light jacket with her blonde hair secured in a half-hearted bun, crossed her arms and released a raspy, jeering laugh. “Well maybe I would have waited longer if you didn’t break your leg crashing cars that don’t belong to you.” Patty did not often see her mother laugh, but when she did the beauty buried beneath last night’s makeup and a lifetime of hustling shined.  

Liz squawked and stomped right over to her mother, the boot of her cast scraping against asphalt. “I told you that wasn’t—”

Gin’s gunmetal eyes gave Liz a look that immediately silenced her daughter. Though Liz had several inches over her mother, Gin was not a woman to be trifled with. “You can’t be your own meister, and with that leg you know damn well you can’t be Patty’s,” she said in a hard voice. ”I can’t trust you girls to be alone if you can’t protect each other. Patty, let’s try it again.”

With a groan, Liz transformed back into a pistol, which Patty caught in midair. The younger Thompson’s enthusiasm evaporated during the exchange between her sister and mother. It reminded her that learning to shoot was serious business. In some situations, knowing how to shoot would be the difference between life and death.

“If you get three more cans,” Gin said, “I’ll get you both a Happy Meal.”

Delight flashed across Patty’s face. “YESYESYES!” She fired Liz three times in rapid succession, successfully hitting one can.

Gin whistled. “Nice one. Do it again, this time while repeating what I taught you. The more you say it, the deeper it sinks in. Soon you won’t even have to think it.”

It took eight more shots to hit those three cans, and even though Liz repeated that it was nothing impressive, Patty felt superbly proud as she marched down the street with her family to Micky D’s. She hummed a tune from a recent commercial and pumped her arms up and down with unbridled exuberance. The urban wasteland disappeared as Patty imagined torn up concrete transforming into clean asphalt and the graffitied buildings shifting into adoring crowds.

Liz walked alongside Patty, hands in her cargo pants pockets, completely disinterested in her sister’s imaginary parade. Their mother was walking briskly ahead of them, flicking her lighter to ignite another cigarette.

“Liz, hold your sister’s hand,” Gin barked over her shoulder with a cigarette between her teeth.

“Mom, we’re too old to hold hands in public!”

“If you don’t hold her hand right now, I’ll see to it that you don’t got any hands,” was Gin’s harsh reply. Liz rolled her eyes and snatched Patty’s hand, making a gruff sound when the youngest Thompson continued her march undeterred, wildly swinging their joined hands.

McDonald’s was truly an oasis in a desert of brick and mortar. The drive-thru entertained a couple cars, and the tables were populated by a few sparse families and children. Patty wanted to pick up speed and power walk to the golden arches, but Liz couldn’t keep up with her broken leg.

She was dimly aware of a pale, skinny man in a torn jacket and a buzz cut loitering on the outskirts of the parking lot, but paid him no heed until he began to call out to them with a nasal voice.

“Hey Ginny! Is that you?” Patty could almost hear her mother’s eyes roll into the back of her head. Patty turned her head to view the man, but Liz suddenly found the strength and speed to overtake her sister and drag her the rest of the way. “I almost didn’t recognize you out of your, eh, uniform,” the man continued. He had caught up to them now, and he laid a hand on Gin’s shoulder. “Hey, hey, Ginny, hey—”

“Don’t call me that when I’m not working,” was her terse reply. She shrugged his hand away and trudged ahead without looking in his direction once.

The man didn’t follow them any further, but his voice grew angry and loud. He yelled hurtful things about Patty and Liz’s mother, told her what she was, described the dirtiness of her existence, but all Gin could do was chuckle.

“Some scrub puts a five in your thong one time and suddenly he thinks you’re friends,” she muttered with droll amusement.

When they reached the restaurant door, Gin eyed her still-burning cigarette. “Shit.” The McDonald’s in their neighborhood didn’t really prohibit many items or behaviors, but smoking inside was still a definite no-no. Liz tugged on her mother’s jacket sleeve.

“I can hold it for you while you get our food,” Liz said.   
  
Their mother narrowed her eyes. “You’re awful eager.” Though Gin clearly had her reservations, the fact of the matter was that cigarettes were expensive and she couldn’t afford to waste one. “Two drags max,” she told her eldest daughter. She placed the cigarette between Liz’s fingers, who stifled a silent cheer. “If it goes anywhere  _near_  Patty’s mouth—”

“Oh it won’t!” Liz said with a nod. Gin did not need to ask what type of meal her daughters wanted, so she walked inside without another word.

To keep from being seen by any employees or nosey passersby, Liz led her sister to the side of the building and leaned against the concrete wall. Patty watched her older sister take a puff of the cigarette with blatant jealousy, because while it was definitely bad for you, smoking was the coolest, most badass thing in the world.

Right after Gin, the second most badass person Patty knew was her sister, who exhaled warm smoke like a natural. Liz did not look very much like their mother, but she definitely inherited Gin’s cool attitude. She was like a younger, unspoiled model of their hard-as-nails mother. Maybe that was why they butted heads so often. Gin recognized her past in Liz and Liz saw her future in Gin.

Patty busied herself by shooting at phantom enemies with her hand, practicing her shooting stance and whispering “pew pew pew!” under her breath as she fired her imaginary weapon. She closed one eye and mimed shooting at phantom enemies, tracing the horizon until her finger landed on a tangible, shadowy figure.

“Hey.” It was him, that man. Up close, Patty could see how rail thin and feral he looked. Truth be told, he looked too poor to know their mom from work. She wondered if he was important in some other way, because Virginia Thompson didn’t mess around with just anybody. “You like Gin’s friends or something?”

It was a mistake people often made. The three Thompson women did not look similar enough to be immediately recognized as family, and Liz always looked mature for her age. Patty’s physical maturity was a recent phenomenon, one that she was still getting used to since she had always been the baby of the family, so it surprised her that she wasn’t immediately recognized as a child.  

“I’m a regular at the club,” he explained. “She’s one of my favorites, but uh, I’m open to trying out new girls like you too.”

“We’re her fucking kids,” Liz said.

His eyebrows shot up, impressed. “Didn’t know she had any kids.” The man’s eyes drifted from Liz to the younger Thompson. “But you know,” he said, staring at Patty, “The more I look at you, the more I see the resemblance.”

Patty was old enough to know that she was too young to be looked at with those ravenous eyes. She shrank backwards, vulnerable and afraid. Liz kept a protective arm around her sister, poised to transform, but Patty wasn’t sure what her sister expected her to do with a demon pistol. Shoot him? Whether she would hit him wasn’t an issue; that man was so close she could see the sweat glistening on his forehead, smell the corn chips on his breath.

No, the problem was that Patty didn’t know if she really had the courage to pull the trigger, even at point blank range.  

To the sisters’ surprise, they didn’t have to do anything. In a flash of dark magenta, the barrel of a shotgun was pressed against the back of the man’s head. Behind him, Gin Thompson stood tall, mouth pressed into a grim line, her right arm clutching fast food, and her left arm transformed into a deadly, merciless weapon.

Liz and Patty sure as hell didn’t inherit their weapon abilities from their deadbeat fathers.

“Back the fuck away from my girls if you know what’s good for you,” Gin said.

The man slowly raised his hands in the air and turned to face Gin. His eyes trailed down the barrel of the shotgun, causing him to chuckle nervously. “Come on Ginny, I was just playing. I bet that thing ain’t even loaded.”

Dropping the McDonald’s bag, Gin’s right hand pumped the barrel of the gun and loaded it with a satisfying click. “Well I ain’t playing around,” Gin said. Her pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks, and the color of her irises faded to a dull grey. The inhuman, ruthless look in her eyes and the severe twist of her mouth caused the man at the end of her gun to tremble.

“I know people,” he sputtered. “You know that. Don’t—don’t try something you’ll regret.”

Gin grinned and languidly brushed the nose of her gun across his neck as if she were slitting his throat. “You have five seconds to get the fuck out of my face, you perverted piece of shit,” she said. “Don’t think I won’t blow you away just because the girls are watching.”

Liz’s arm tightened around her sister. The scrawny man’s adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and he slowly backed away from the nozzle of Gin’s gun before making a break for it. Gin’s forearm transformed back to normal, but the predatory look in her eyes remained. “What a pussy,” she said.

“Who was that guy?” Liz asked. “Why was he so creepy? How come—”

Gin held out her hand. “Cigarette, please.” Liz rolled her eyes and handed it back to her mother, who immediately drew it to her lips and began to walk away. The sisters followed after, peeved that the discussion was over before it had even begun. “So what toy did you get?” Gin asked her daughters before continuing her smoke.

Patty’s hand rifled through her happy meal, sifting through warm french fries and napkins until she found an object wrapped in plastic. She withdrew it from the paper bag and grinned. “I got a racecar!”

“I got a pony,” Liz said, inspecting a small plastic pony she found in her own meal. She dropped the toy into Patty’s bag, who squealed with delight.

A standoff one minute, happy meals the next. Theirs was not a normal family, but Patty was glad it was  _her_  family none the less.

They trudged up the stairs of their decrepit apartment building, where they lived in a two-bedroom without air-conditioning or a dish washer. Liz and Patty shared a small room with a single bed that overflowed with dirty clothes, toys, and old magazines. Their single bathroom was filled to the brim with cosmetics and hair-styling equipment—vital items for Gin’s profession.

Later that evening, Gin exited the bathroom done up and dressed for work. It was immediately before going to work, when her makeup was fresh and unsmudged and her sequined bodice shined underneath the fluorescent light of their home, that Gin looked least like their mother. Her blonde hair, almost always up, flowed down her shoulders in tight curls, and fake eyelashes caused her eyes to look unnaturally bright. The only familiar thing about her was her shoes, which were sensible clogs she wore until she changed into stilettos at the club.

Patty was drawing absentmindedly in her little room as Gin went through the usual routine with Liz.   

“Now you stay here with your sister the entire night,” Gin said to Liz. “Don’t open the door to anyone but me. Touch my liquor and I will know.”

“Wait, aren’t you forgetting to—” Liz stopped short when her mother looked at her with a quizzical expression.

Understanding dawned on Gin’s face. “You’re right, I did forget something.” Her left arm was engulfed in dark pink light, and from her shoulder joint appeared a shotgun. Dropping her purse, Gin sauntered over to the open closet in their bedroom. She poked around inside with her gun, prodding clothes suspended on their hangers and tapping the walls. Next, she dropped to her knees and swiped her gun underneath Liz and Patty’s shared bed. Pleased that she had found nothing, Gin got back up to her feet.

“No ghosts in here,” she announced with a crooked grin. “Let’s check behind the shower curtain.” Liz nodded furiously and followed her mother into the bathroom. This was a ritual Gin performed almost every time she left the girls alone at home. The family had even been evicted from one of their former apartments after a terrified Liz insisted their mother fire a warning shot into their bedroom closet. Patty never understood her sister’s profound fear of ghosts, nor did she know why any ghouls liked to hide in Liz’s closet, but it was nice all the same to know the little cupboard they called home was safe and sound.

The other two Thompson women emerged from the bathroom, Liz looking much more comfortable and happy than when she went inside.  

“By the way Liz,” Gin said, picking up her purse from where she left it on the floor. “You’re grounded.”

“ _What?_ Why?”

“For letting a stranger corner you like that. You know better.”

Liz stormed away into her shared room with Patty and flopped on the bed. Neither said goodbye as their mother shuffled out the door and locked it behind her. Meanwhile, Patty returned to her art.

Patty loved to draw—mostly animals, sometimes boats and cars, and on even rarer occasions, people. Still reeling from the excitement of her shooting lesson, she chose Gin as her next artistic subject. Clothes were easy, and so was hair, but Patty had a hard time getting the face right. That cold smile, those eyes that could destroy without conscious— neither were easily rendered with crayon or washable marker. Patty did not own a drawing instrument thin enough to detail those bloodthirsty pupils.

“Mom gets kinda scary when she’s pointing her gun at somebody,” Patty thought aloud.

Liz was sprawled on their shared bed, flipping through the glossy pages of a magazine. “Scary’s not the word I’d use,” she said. “I guess she just enjoys it. The power, I mean. Being a weapon is pretty damn sweet.”

“I guess it’s good Mom can shoot herself,” Patty mused. Gin was, after all, a weapon and meister rolled into one. “That’s why she knows so much.”

On her bed, Liz threw her head back and laughed. “Oh  _please._ Mom doesn’t know jack shit about  _anything_. That stuff she makes you repeat, you think she  _made up_  that swami shit? She just steals from the books she reads in the john. It’s all one big lie so she can pretend she’s smarter than us.”

Patty looked down at her drawing and frowned. “She wouldn’t teach it to us if it didn’t work.”

“Yeah she would. Fuck, that stupid thing was twice as long when she made me do it.” Liz sat up on the bed and gathered her hair into one hand and created an imaginary gun with the other. With her hair pulled out of her face, she scrunched her nose to impersonate their mother.

“‘I don’t aim with my hand,’” Liz said, emulating the dry huskiness of a chain smoker. “‘I aim with my eyes. She who aims with her hand has forgotten the face of her mother.’ HA! What a load of bullshit.” Liz retched with disgust and let her hair fell back into place. “Like I’m going to think of her ugly face every time I shoot somebody. Actually, maybe I should. It’ll motivate me to hit my target. Bang, bang, have a nice dream,  _Mom_! See ya in hell, bitch!”

It was mean for Liz to say all those things, especially about their mom, but Patty could not help giggle as she watched her sister’s tirade.

Encouraged by her sister’s laughter, Liz adopted Gin’s husky tone again and held her left arm like a shotgun. “‘You touch my liquor, I’ll give you a Thompson handshake.  _Pow pow!_ ’” She paused to swallow her laughter. “‘Patty! Come give mommy a nice slobbery, kiss—’”

“No, no, no!” Patty squealed, scrambling to escape Liz’s arms. For someone struggling with a broken leg, Liz showed remarkable agility as she scooped up her squirming sister and blew a raspberry into her neck. By the time Patty had finally pinned her older sister to the ground, the two were too spent to wrestle anymore. They fell asleep, nestled right next to each other, as soon as their heads hit their pillows.

Patty was jerked back into consciousness by firm hands shaking her shoulders. Her sight slowly regained focus, and she saw her mother looming above her with terrified eyes. She was still dressed for work in her sequined bodice and tight skirt, but her springy curls had long deflated into limp straw-like tendrils.

“Get up,” Gin ordered. “Put some clothes and socks on.”

“Why aren’t you at work?” Patty asked, rubbing her eyes.

“Why aren’t you getting dressed like I just told you?”

The clock on her nightstand said it was nearly 2 in the morning, way too early for Gin to be home. She dressed like a zombie, absently wondering what on earth was going on to make Gin come home so early, or to make Patty stay up so late.

Whatever grogginess Patty felt upon waking dissipated as she saw the frenzy of activity in the other room. Gin was a woman possessed, stuffing clothing and supplies into a bag, rifling through drawers, and stacking furniture against their front door. Liz was wide awake, and stood positioned at the open window, uneasily peering down the fire escape.

“Are we…moving?” Patty asked. The urgency in the air frightened her.

Neither her mother or older sister answered. Gin produced a wad of cash from her purse and thrust it towards her eldest daughter. “Put this in your pocket, it’s all I got right now. You can’t run or climb with that leg, so you gotta transform and let Patty carry you down the fire escape.”

Liz shook her head furiously. “I’m not gonna run away, I want to stay here and fight with you!” She attempted to resist and pound her fists into her mother’s torso, but Gin seized both of her wrists. Liz gasped and tried to twist her arms away, but Gin’s grip remained firm.

“Liz,” their mother said raggedly. “Please, for once in your goddamned life, don’t argue with me! People can say what they like about our family, but they can never say I didn’t protect you girls,  _never!”_

Gin released her daughter’s wrists, causing Liz to stumble backwards. Liz seemed to finally notice that her sister was there. “Mom poked her gun in the wrong fucker’s face,” Liz spat. “And now we gotta skip town before some goons shoot up this place.”

“If it were just goons I wouldn’t be sending you away,” Gin said hoarsely. She looked so haggard and drained, nothing like the fearless woman Patty knew, and reached out to gingerly hold both of Patty’s hands. “You’re gonna carry Liz the fire escape and hide.” she said. “Don’t be afraid to use your sister. You girls have to protect each other until I find you. Think you can do that for me?”

“What about you? You’re coming too, right?”

A familiar look of steel and gunpowder flickered in Gin’s eyes. “I’m staying here to give them an ol’ fashioned Thompson handshake.” One by one, she cupped her daughters faces and brushed their hair behind their ears. The gesture was so intimate and motherly that Patty could do nothing but stare. “You girls get out now,” she said. “Don’t come back here—I’ll find you. Clear?”

Liz’s face was unforgiving and cold, but she nodded and dissolved into bright pink light and materialized as a demonpistol in Gin’s hand, who in turn handed Liz over to Patty. The ten year-old stuck Liz in the waistband of her pants.

Patty climbed through the window, and hopped onto the platform. The fire escape zigzagged down the side of the building, darkness enveloping each ladder as they reached closer to the ground below. Before starting down the stairs, she gave her mother a small wave.

Gin’s jaw was set, her arm already transformed, and with a twitch of a smile she closed and locked the window.

Their apartment was only four floors up, but the short amount of time it takes to climb up four flights of indoors stairs triples when inching down four flights slippery metal. The railing was slick and icy underneath Patty’s tiny palms, and a shiver jolted up her arms as she raced down the ladder steps.

Patty had made it down three floors when the discharge of shotgun shook her bones. She groped the cold railing and looked back up at their apartment window, but saw no shadows or movements. A second later, a second gunshot.

There was no going back, not without breaking the window, and she didn’t want to make Gin angry by defying her last order. Patty continued her descent, jumping out of her skin every time she heard the shriek of her mother’s gun. The last ladder down needed to be pushed into place, and Patty leaned with all of her weight as she slid the ladder down into the darkness. She skipped every other rung on the way down, and sprinted behind the nearest dumpster she could find. The demonpistol was catching her breath and contemplating which direction to run when the gunfire ceased.

“Patty, come on, let’s go!” Liz urged.

“There’s no more shooting,” Patty whispered. “Maybe—” The sound of shattering glass cut Patty off from her thought. Her heart leapt into her throat, and without thought or words she jumped out from behind the dumpster and looked at the brick building they had just fled.

Their apartment light was still on, and their window reduced to a broken pane and shards of glass. For a moment, Patty thought she saw the silhouette of their mother, drunk on triumph, emerge from within.

A figure did emerge from their apartment, but it was not their mother.

She heard her sister gasp from within the chamber of her gun form. “Is that a—”  

Just because Liz and Patty had never seen one before didn’t mean they didn’t know what it was. A pre-kishin dressed in a billowing trenchcoat leapt onto their fire escape and hitched a leg over the rail. It sniffed the air, and its faintly glowing eyes immediately honed in on Patty’s slight form, which was stock still with shock. She turned on her heel and ran, ran so far and so fast that the ten year-old could not truly register where it was she was going.

Buildings passed by in a blur. The only sensations that mattered was the taste of copper in Patty’s mouth, the ache in her rib cage, and the footfalls of a figure lolloping behind her. Rounding a corner, Patty pushed open the first doors she saw.

It was one of the condemned buildings the city never had chance to actually demolish. There were a lot of empty, hollow lots in their neighborhood, which explained how Gin was able to live in the city in the first place. Once inside, Patty sped down a long, wide hallway and dived into the smallest crawlspace she could find.

“Don’t shake me so much.” Liz’s voice was nothing but a whisper swirling through the grooves of the gun. Patty shakily exhaled and steadied her trembling hands. Back against cold concrete, Patty shifted slowly so she could see around the corner, but shrank back when she saw a hulking shadow blocking the doorway. She could feel Liz’s wavelength vibrating with terror, begging her to run, but there was no way out. The only thing they could do was kill the monster before it killed them.

The distance between her and the pre-kishin seemed to expand in length. She couldn’t shoot it from this far away—it needed to get closer.

Patty bolted from where she was hidden and stood in the middle of the hallway.

Liz reacted with a flurry of words. “ _What the hell are you thinking do you want us to get killed? Patty, no!”_

The pre-kishin hadn’t seen them yet. It seemed to rely on its sense of smell more than sight, and was nosing through rubble and trash like an animal. Patty spread her feet apart and raised Liz with both hands. Her hands weren’t trembling now.

“I don’t aim with my hand,” she said in a low voice. At the end of the hall, the kishin-egg paused. “I aim with my eyes.”

It had noticed them, and with wavering, uneven steps it began its slow advance. The urge to pull the trigger now was strong, but the creature was still too far away. If she was going to put this animal down, she had to get it right between the eyes.

Swallowing, Patty continued. “I don’t shoot with my hand, I—I shoot with my mind.” With every lurching step the pre-kishin took, it walked closer and closer to the middle of the crosshairs in Patty’s mind. She noted that it was favoring its right leg because it’s left knee was gushing blood. Their mother must have tried to shatter its kneecaps when she fought it, for all the good that did.

The vision of Gin’s firm expression of steel and her eyes, cunning and hungry like a raptor, flashed in Patty’s mind, and she knew that no matter where she went and who she met, the weapon-turned-meister would remember it forever.

“I don’t kill with my gun—” The pre-kishin had picked up its pace, and was beginning to break into a run. It stepped right into her range, and her heart was pounding so hard she thought its thumping would wake the entire city.

The pre-kishin was almost upon her, and with wide, manic eyes, Patty smiled with her teeth.  

 _“I kill with my heart, motherfucker!_ ”

She squeezed the trigger three times, not waiting to see whether each shot hit its target. She didn’t need to—her aim was true. All three pellets of Liz’s soul wavelength struck the kishin-egg’s skull, causing the monster’s head to jerk backwards. It’s body shuddered as it collapsed to the ground, releasing one final death wail before becoming still.

There was something surreal about staring at a corpse. If she hadn’t shot it herself, Patty wouldn’t have believed it was real. More shocking was absence of emotion after having done something so violent. It felt natural. It felt good. Dizzyingly good.

“You alright?” Liz said in gun form, concerned.

Like a light switch, Patty’s grim face vanished and a cheery smile took its place. “Yep, yep, yep!”

She felt the weight of the gun disappear as Liz shifted back into her human shape. “Oh my god, we just killed that thing.” Liz looked at the gnarled body and laughed nervously. She, too, was struggling to articulate the same mixture of guilt and delirious joy.  

Patty wanted to respond that she couldn’t wait to tell Gin about this, but it sounded naive even to her.

Adrenaline was still buzzing in Patty’s mind when Liz turned and walked away from the body. “You know,” she said to her younger sister. She held Patty’s hand and threaded their fingers together. “Brooklyn’s supposed to be on the up and up. Maybe I can get a job there or something, find us some shelter. Mom left us some money, we can make do.”

The sisters were robbed of home, their guardian, and any vestige of safety all in one night, but their loss was tempered by a discovery of hidden power. Patty wanted to return to the apartment, to grieve and cry over the scene she would surely find, but that would not be what Gin wanted.

Holding hands, they set out, adrift into a city that made no angels, with only the clothes on their backs and the gun in their souls.


	9. The Canadian Contingent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU based on the pilot episode of "Gavin and Stacey." Canadian-born Maka Albarn is crossing the border to meet longtime flirtation Soul Evans for the first time in Times Square. As the two lovebirds and their wingmen prepare to meet face to face, hijinks ensue. Implied sexual situations, some explicit language.

 

_Maka: Stop it! Everybody’s looking at me!_

_Soul: not my fault you got a dirty laugh._

_Maka: ah;lshdalkshfslk It is your fault!_

Maka turned her cellphone face down and covered her mouth to stifle her giggles. She should really know better than to chat with Soul on the theater’s time, but with all the excitement bubbling in her stomach, who could blame her? Six months after they first stumbled upon each other, the two were finally going to be in the same country, the same city. Even though he lived all the way in the United States, it never felt like he was that far away at all. Now, on the eve of their first in-person meeting, she felt closer to him than ever.

Once she composed herself, Maka returned to the box office window, where she had a full line of patrons patiently waiting for her to scan their tickets. She smiled as if she hadn’t spontaneously burst into hysterics, and the man at the front of the line smiled back as if he hadn’t seen a thing.

After scanning and tearing five tickets, a short elderly woman approached the counter. “Hiya love,” the old woman said, sliding her ticket into the booth. “Were you just talking to the boy you’re meeting on that blind date?”

Maka didn’t question how the old woman knew about her date. Niagara-on-the-Lake was a small enough town where everyone’s plans and secrets were openly discussed at the check-out line of the supermarket. Knowing her father, everyone from the neighbors to the bartender at the local pub knew about her upcoming journey.

“Oh, it’s not a blind date,” Maka said. “We’ve been talking for six months. But yeah, I’m meeting him tomorrow in Times Square! I can’t even believe it, to be honest.”

She slid the ticket across the table, and as the old lady collected the stub she pointed a gnarled finger at Maka. “Just remember, don’t go giving him too much on the first night.”

Cocking her head to the side, Maka asked, “Really?”

“Well,” the crone said thoughtfully. “No, not nothing. A kiss, a cuddle, a cheeky finger. Just don’t go selling him the whole farm.”

“Ah, thanks,” Maka said with a sincere smile. As the old woman slowly made her way out of line, Maka flipped over her cellphone so she could tap out a new message.

 

* * *

_Maka: After all this time, we’re really going to meet face-to-face._

_Soul: 17 more hours babe. can’t wait._

Soul grinned as his thumb pressed the ‘send’ button, but his smile vanished as his phone immediately began to buzz. The name “Western Evans” flashed across the screen, and Soul gave his coworker an apologetic look before leaving the room and putting his phone to his ear.

His brother was calling him in the middle of the workday. Again. Only a year out of college and still desperately searching for independence and purpose, it irritated Soul that he could not go a single day without getting a call from his brother or his mom. Wes did not have set work hours, but that didn’t mean everyone else in his life bent to his nonexistent schedule. Some people had work to do. Some people couldn’t get cushy record deals from a New York label with talent alone. Some people had to run lights, arrange press passes, make phone calls, and basically do everything in order to get a toe in the industry door.

Well, technically speaking Soul wasn’t one of those people either. As the second son of the illustrious Evans family, he was certainly not forced to slowly climb the music industry ladder from the bottom. No, he was there because he wanted to be, because the sooner he made something of himself and saved up enough money, the sooner he could shatter his family ties and strike out on his own. If only his family could respect that like Maka did.

On the phone, Wes immediately launched into the same spiel he had been feeding Soul for an entire week. “Oh, come on!” Soul growled back. “I DO know her! You can know someone without meeting them in person. Look, what’s the big deal? She’s bringing a friend, I’m bringing you.”

* * *

“And please make sure you stay with Liz at all times!” Spirit Albarn poked at Maka’s solidifying omelet with a spatula. The widower only knew how to cook one dish, but somehow that had sufficed for the entire family for more than five years. He waved the spatula like a wand and pointed it at his daughter. “Do not let her out of your sight, not for a second!”

Maka rolled her eyes at her father. “I don’t know why you think Liz’s any safer than me.’

“She’s a tough girl. Gets it from her mother. And if she has one iota of Patty’s aggression inside her, you’ll be OK. Anyways, we don’t know anything about Soul.” Spirit spoke the name with obvious suspicion and distaste. “It’s a father’s responsibility to worry about these things, pumpkin. Your brother should be home soon with the alarm, since the pepper spray fell through.”

The mention of the goddamn alarm soured Maka’s mood as Spirit lifted the skillet of their old stove, slid the cooked omelet on to his daughter’s plate with an adept flourish, and walked it out of their cramped kitchen. With a wide, genuine smile, Spirit placed it in front of Maka on the faded table cloth. The Albarn townhouse was best described as ‘pokey’ and ‘homey,’ but it suited the family perfectly well.

Maka was halfway through the steaming omelet when she heard the door open. Liz Thompson strolled in, the heels of her black leather boots audibly scuffing against the hardwood floor and her purse swinging from its thin strap. She was dressed in tight jeans and a leather bustier that exposed the tattoos blooming on her left shoulder and crawling down her arm. Maka considered Liz the yin to her yang—she was laid back, intimidating, and badass as hell. While she considered herself badass too, Maka had to admit she was softer, nerdier brand of hardcore, the kind no one noticed until they got on her bad side.

Liz nodded to Spirit, who was already cracking open more eggs, and tossed her purse onto the kitchen table.

“Where’s your stuff?” Maka asked. Liz was staying the night so the two could set out in the early morning, but she seemed to have brought nothing. The tall blonde rolled her eyes and nodded towards her tiny purse. “That’s it?”

“I got my eyeliner, a packet of feminine wipes, and a Camel Light,” Liz said. “What else do I need?”

“Your toothbrush?”

“I got tic tacs. I saw Star pulling in, so he’s probably here with—”

The sound of the door swinging open and smacking into the wall caused Maka to jump out of her skin. She would never get used to her adoptive brother’s explosive entrances, nor would she learn to love his trademark howl of “YAHOO!” every time he entered the room.

“ME!” Black Star called, blue hair blazing as he waved a scrunched up plastic bag in the air. “It’s me everyone! I got it! I got the rape alarm!”

An exasperated sigh escaped Maka’s throat, and she put her face in her hands. Her brother had been talking nonstop about this horrible, sexist product since she made the mistake of telling him about her trip to America. She couldn’t even fathom the gendered implications of this device without cringing. It was so fucking insulting that she couldn’t go meet the man she had steadily fallen for without a stupid plastic device attached to her body.

Maka was not one for keeping her grievances a secret, so her father quickly stepped in. “Star, I know what it says on the box,” Spirit said delicately. “But your sister has a socio-political qualm with that term. Now, what do I owe you for that personal alarm?”

“This one’s on me,” Black Star said with a wide grin. He fished a tiny package out of the plastic bag. “This stuff is important, so I got it for the whole family. Truth is, I don’t want anyone to get raped, myself included.”

Spirit nodded with approval. “That’s very good of you, Black Star.”

“Fair play,” Liz agreed.

“So the guy at the store says I should give you a demonstration,” Black Star said as he tore into the package. He retrieved a tiny plastic rectangle from the cardboard wreckage, and with tender hands he clipped it to his shirt collar. Satisfied, he flashed a cocky grin towards his sister and held out his arms wide, like a prizefighter inviting a punch. “So, Maka, I want you to jump at me as if you were trying to attack me. Punch me with everything you got, I can take it.”

This was disgusting. Maka did not approve of what the stupid alarm represented, and she certainly didn’t appreciate all this speculation that Soul was some predator. Sure, his hair was white, but that didn’t mean he was an old perv in disguise. “You don’t have to show me. I can work it out myself,” she snapped.

Black Star narrowed his eyes, set his jaw, and with one swift movement he hiked his leg onto the top of the kitchen table. Maka would have admired his flexibility if she wasn’t already pissed off.

“Maka,” Black Star said in an abnormally serious tone. “Tomorrow morning you are travelling to New York City, all the way in the United States of fucking America, to meet a guy you’ve never met before. I offered to come with you, you said no. I offered to drive you and wait in the car, you said no. You finally met me half way with the alarm. At least have the goddamn decency to let me, your heavenly brother, give you a demonstration.”

His leg lifted off the table and once again held his arms out wide. “So seriously, Maka, attack me.” She stood up, ready to rip Black Star a new one, but as Maka looked at her brother’s cocky grin she decided against playing along with his game. She landed a half-hearted punch on his shoulder.

“The hell are you doing?” Black Star exclaimed. “Come on!” Maka hit him again, this time even lighter. Black Star, predictably, was more angry that Maka was holding back than he would be if she actually hit him. “Shit, fine, Maka sit down. Liz, how about you try.”

* * *

When he arrived at the spacious, elegant mansion he called home, Soul was drawn to the living room where he heard his mother watching her afternoon programs. She was a slight woman with features that were both round and sharp, but her face had softened as she heard her son enter the room.

“Good evening darling,” she said with a sniff. “I was just watching Pet Rescue, and a badger’s whole litter died. You could actually see the mother badger crying.”

“I don’t think badgers can cry, Mom,” Soul said.

“Neither did I, darling,” his mom said, clutching her heart. “But I know what I saw, and it’s knocked me for six.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“He left work at two so he could go to the country club.”

Of course he did. Sometimes Soul could go weeks without seeing his dad, who seemed to rotate between his study, his office, and the country club almost every day. In their big house and expansive property, sometimes his mother was similarly hard to find. The whole family lived together under one roof, but it rarely felt like a family at all.

He left his mother in the living room and headed to the kitchen for a snack. The best benefit of still living at home was definitely the never-ending free food. He was putting some delicious cold cuts behind two slices of fresh bread when his brother found him.

Wes went straight to the fridge to extract two beers, one of which he tossed to his younger brother. Soul easily caught in his right hand, completely accustomed to this afternoon ritual of homemade sandwiches and beers. He popped the tab and took a sip while his brother watched him from across the room with a worried, contemplative expression on his face.

“Not too late to back out,” Wes said. “All it takes is one phone call.”

“No,” Soul had said this to Wes so many times that he truly felt like a broken record. “I’ve got to meet her. I wanna meet her.”

His brother sighed as if arguing with an unruly child. “Look. I was talking to Drew and Miguel about you, and we’re worried. You’re putting all your eggs in one bag.” Seeing that Soul’s face remained expressionless, Wes grew more exasperated. “She’s Canadian! All I’m saying is, don’t get your hopes up over one girl you might not ever see again.”

“Since when did you became an expert on relationships?” Soul snapped. “You’ve never been with the same person for more than a few months.”

Wes barked a boisterous laugh as if Soul had just told him some dirty joke. “What you call a string of meaningless flings devoid of intimacy, little brother, I happily refer to as swimming in a pussy waterfall. I’ve been balls-deep—”

Soul’s blank face masked his internal disgust. “Stop.”

“—in  _cooze_  since I was seventeen, and you know what?” Wes paused for emphasis. “The water’s nice.”

Half a year ago, Soul would have been right next to his brother when it came to women and relationships. He wasn’t the partier his brother was, and he seldom if ever inspired instant attraction in anyone like Wes did, but that player lifestyle was something he ultimately aspired to emulate. Love changed things.

He vigorously shook his head—he couldn’t afford to start thinking like that. Soul didn’t even know if Maka liked him, not for certain. Talking on the phone and texting for six months didn’t guarantee a damn thing. Maybe she just wanted to be his friend. Maybe she was interested, but would change her mind after finally meeting him in person. Or maybe, in the worst of all scenarios, she would stand him up, leaving Soul standing alone and silently bereft in the middle of the bustling Times Square.

It ground on him to admit it, but on this point Wes was right. If Soul got his hopes up too high and Maka did reject him, it would be one hell of a fall.

“You don’t have to come,” Soul finally said, slathering a good heap of mayonnaise onto his sandwich before pressing the slices of bread together. “I’ll go on my own.”

Wes scoffed. “Nope, Mom and Dad made me promise to come with.” He paused before pressing forward. “They’re convinced she’s a con artist, can you believe that? Like, they think she’s spent these six months using you to case our family. The way they see it, you’re easy pickings because you’re all young and vulnerable and directionless.”

Whether he truly believed his parents actually said that did not matter. Soul’s blood boiled beneath his skin, and his sharp teeth locked together as he growled,  _“Maka’s not a con artist!”_  He looked vaguely threatening, waving around his mayonnaise-coated butter knife, but Wes remained nonplussed.

“Calm down, I agree with you, the background check came back clean so as far as I’m concerned, she’s the real deal,” Wes said. “Now, this mystery friend of hers could be a complete psychopath.”

“Course she won’t be!”

* * *

A sharp whirring sound blared from the personal alarm attached to Black Star’s collar. With one manicured hand, Liz held Maka’s brother against the wall by the neck. With the other, a switchblade pointed towards his throat. Her torso was pressed against his, trapping him with a calculated knee between his legs.

“You perverted piece of shit,” Liz said through gritted teeth.

Both Spirit and Maka were tugging on Liz’s arms. “Put him down, Liz!” Spirit yelped.

Liz leaned in and whispered,  _“You make me sick.”_  Just as suddenly as she pounced, Liz let Black Star go. The irritating alarm quieted and Liz grinned, pleased with herself. “Is that the sort of thing you meant, then?” The switchblade retracted with an audible snick, and Liz stowed it back inside her bra.

Black Star caught his breath, and after gingerly removing the alarm he gave Liz a thumbs up. “Yeah, that was great. Thanks, Liz.”

“No prob.”

Sleep did not come easily to Maka that night, but she only had to look at the glowing screen on her cellphone to know that she wasn’t the alone in her excitement.

The next morning, Maka left with her duffle bag over her shoulder and, more reluctantly, her personal alarm clipped to the waistband of her jean skirt. With her orange top loosely tuck in, the device was invisible. Wearing the same clothes she arrived in the day before, Liz slung her small purse on her elbow as they arrived at the bus depot.

Despite its name, Free’s Coaches did not provide free rides to its passengers. For $30 a pop, the enormous red tour bus lumbered between Niagara-on-the-Lake and a myriad of other destinations almost every day. Free did not usually drive all the way to New York City, but he and Liz had history, so strings could be pulled. That of course, did not mean Free was on Liz’s good side.

The tall, burly man wore a striped shirt and a leather jacket while he leaned against the red bus, nodding like a club bouncer as he let passengers aboard. Free instantly stood up straight when he saw Liz and Maka approach.

“You’re not bringing a suitcase, eh Liz?” Free asked.

Liz’s upper lip curled with distaste. “Don’t be an asshole, Free.” She pushed on past him and heaved herself onto the bus. Free watched her go with a mixture of forlornness and longing.

“I had the best night of my life with that woman,” Free said wistfully. “Animal, absolute animal.”

“Free?” Maka asked. “Liz wants to smoke on the bus, is that alright?”

The tall man snapped out of his reverie. “Huh? Oh right. My motto is ‘Cigs and weed, glues and speed, but I draw the line at crack.’” Free chuckled to himself. “That way, everyone knows where they stand.”

Maka nodded. While she didn’t partake in any of the aforementioned substances, his motto seemed pretty reasonable. Free stowed her bag in the back of the bus while Maka pulled herself aboard. Liz already had one hand with a lit cigarette hanging out the window, but she was not alone. Of the twenty or so passengers on the bus, at least four others were sticking their heads out the window so they could smoke as well. Every trip on Free’s Coaches inevitably became a rowdy ride. While the bus smelled like cigarette water, it boasted large, clean windows, which was more than enough. As long as she could stare at the beautiful Canadian countryside, gape at New York City, and text Soul, her thoughts of budding love would be all the entertainment she needed.

Part of her was terrified it was going to go wrong, that Soul would take one look at her and decided she wasn’t worth his time, that he would actually leave her stranded in a foreign city. Maka leaned against the bus window and absentmindedly scrolled through her archive of text messages, marking her favorites, saving pieces of him to hold on to in the event that Soul Evans would become her next brilliant disaster.

* * *

_Maka: My phone plan won’t let me text anymore…because I’m officially in the United States!!! Five more hours!_

_Soul: HYPE_

The text was both comforting and ominous. On one hand, Soul couldn’t talk to Maka because she was in that very moment on her way to see him. Good thing! On the other, Soul couldn’t talk to Maka, send vaguely anxious messages inquiring about her progress, or even reassure himself that she was coming at all. Bad thing. The only thing to do was to meet her in Times Square at their agreed time. That required more faith than Soul had ever had in anyone.

“Taste this,” Wes said. It was far too early to make the short drive to New York, and Wes succeeded in convincing his brother to hang out at their favorite bar—scratch that, Wes’ favorite bar. His brother pushed a glass of beer towards him. “This is one of Germany’s best kept secrets.”

Soul gave it a perfunctory sip and set the glass back down. “Did you feel the kick in the back?” Wes said, tapping his throat. “That’s one’s got to be an eight out of ten.”

“Five,” Soul said without thinking.

“What?” Wes gave Soul a look of betrayal and disgust. “See, this is my problem. Ever since things turned up a notch with Maka, you’ve been gone. The lights are on, but nobody’s home. Who are you, anyway?”

“Fuck off,” Soul said. Feeling a little guilty for upsetting his brother, he added, “I’m just too nervous.”

“Me too,” Wes said. “I’m nervous it’s not going to go well, and you’re going to be so crushed you’re never gonna recover.” Sometimes, Wes’ ego melted away, revealing the concerned and supportive brother Soul really had for a single, fleeting second.

These moments, however, were rare for a reason. Soul felt genuinely relieved when his brother ended the conversation with, “I swear to buck-naked Jesus if this friend of hers is a beluga whale, that could be the end of me and you.”

The hours flew by, and Soul suddenly found himself in the back of a Lexus, scrolling through his entire archive of text messages with Maka Albarn, silently regretting every single time he called her ‘babe.’ He started it kind of as an experiment and continued simply because she seemed to enjoy the nickname, but now that they were meeting face to face, he didn’t think he was cool enough to pull ‘babe’ off in person. He would look like a tool, especially right next to his suave brother. No, better to call her by her first name, or even by her last name, just to be safe. Soul didn’t want to offend her by acting too familiar on their first date, if he could even call it that.

Wes sat on the other side, distantly looking out the window while their Uber driver navigated the city streets. It suddenly felt like a mistake to bring attractive, confident, prodigious Wes along as his wingman, because every time the brothers stood side by side there always a clear favorite, always. Soul was a couple centimeters taller when he stood up straight, but somehow that didn’t make up for an entire childhood of sloppy seconds. The thought of Maka running off to hook up with his popular brother and leaving him in the dust made his chest twist. Could it be that even after six months of talking and flirting, Maka would prefer Wes over Soul?

“Point her out to me when we get there, alright?” his brother said, still looking out the window. “You know I have trouble perceiving women that aren’t an eight or better.”

Maka was going to hate Wes. Rolling, boiling, unyielding hatred. As reassuring as the realization was, Soul hoped having a dickbag for a brother didn’t ruin his chances with her.

Leaving the car and walking down Broadway was a whirlwind. So many people, so many faces, but they weren’t the right one.

And then, as the flashing lights and advertisements loomed over him, he saw her. There, standing with a phone in one hand and a clutch in the other, alone, searching the crowds with a worried expression on her face. She wasn’t wearing pigtails, which was unusual since she always wore them in the scant photos they had exchanged. He was specifically looking out for pigtails, and seeing her without them had thrown him off. It reminded him of how little they really knew each other, of how easy it could be to call off this whole thing and escape behind the screen of his phone. Soul’s breath hitched when he considered that maybe she had been waiting for a while.

“There she is,” Soul murmured to his brother. “Oh, shit. Fuck. I can’t, she’s so—I have to, she’s waiting. She’s all by herself.”

“Yeah, but where’s her friend?” Wes asked, panicked. Soul ignored him and charged forward, gaining confidence with every step. “Hey! Where’s her friend?!”

She spotted him more quickly than he expected her to, and her thin pink lips formed a wide grin. “Oh my god!” She held out an arm and he lurched forward to receive her one-armed hug. It was chaste and far too short, and after it was over Soul swayed in the street as he stilled his heart and regained his composure.

“When did you get here?” he asked.

“I’ve only been here ten minutes,” she said.

They stared at each other with matching grins. Before, Maka had been a name in a text, a voice on the phone, but now she was a living, breathing person with a voice that sounded like music, hair that blew lightly in the wind, and eyes so deep he could fall right into them. She was real, she was in front of him, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she was ecstatic. There was a sliver of a possibility that she was just as excited about this meeting as he was, and it was widening by the second. They said nothing, staring, until Wes cleared his throat with the tact and class of a three-legged rhinoceros.

“Oh,” Soul said. “Sorry, bro. Maka, this is my brother Wes.”

“Western Evans,” Wes said guardedly, holding out his hand. Maka took it in her own lily white palm. “I heard a lot about you.”

“Heard a lot about you, too.” Maka said.

Wes withdrew his hand and stuck it in his pocket. “Came on your own in the end, did you?”

“What? Oh, no, no, I came with—” Maka stood on tiptoes to see over the crowds, a gesture Soul found so embarrassingly adorable that he wanted to evaporate. “Oh, here she is now! Liz!”

Wes and Soul followed Maka’s line of sight to see who she was waving to, and their eyes simultaneously landed on the figure of a tall, leather-clad blonde. In skin-tight jeans, heeled boots, and an unseasonably revealing corset, Liz was one of the most beautiful and terrifying women either Evans had either seen. She held two pieces of pizza in her hand, and didn’t seem to notice or acknowledge the guys when she finally rejoined the group.

“This is Elizabeth,” Maka said.

“Six dollars for two slices of pizza!” Liz said ruefully. “When I lived here, this would be a fucking disgrace. New Yorkers these days will pay ten bucks to eat shit if you melt enough cheese on it.”

Maka colored and tapped furiously on Liz’s shoulder.  _“Liz!”_

“What?”

“This is Soul!”

Liz’s gunmetal eyes flickered towards the guys gaping at her and appraised them both with a visual sweep up and down their bodies before finally resting on Soul’s face. She balanced both pizza slices in one hand and extended her free arm. “Soul. How’s it going?”

“Yeah, great.” Soul said. He quickly shook her hand, afraid to break eye contact. “And this is Wes, my older brother.”

“Yeah, charmed,” Wes said, but the look on his face indicated that he felt anything but.

“Well,” Soul said, eager to move things forward. “Should we get a drink somewhere? I’m not sure where to go, but—”

“Anywhere’s great!” Maka said. “I don’t mind where we go.” Without warning she threaded her fingers in his, which he instinctively squeezed. Warmth expanded throughout his chest like a balloon, and he suddenly became conscious that he was smiling like a maniac.

“Maka,” Liz asked, holding out a slice of pizza. “Do you still want this?”

“Oh no,” Maka said giddily. She started tugging Soul away, impatient to start the night’s adventure. “I’m not very hungry anymore.”

Liz scrunched her nose and slowly turned to Wes, who stood near her like an awkward scarecrow. He mumbled something and took the second slice of pizza, and the two set off after the love birds.

* * *

Of all the things Maka worried about on her way to New York City, it never occurred to her that Liz would not play nice with Soul’s brother. Once the group found a bar to chill inside, the two would not quit glaring daggers at one another. Their obvious animosity was tempered the by electric chemistry between Maka and the younger Evans brother. They naturally gravitated towards each other, bumping shoulders, brushing hands, and making eye contact far too often to be accidental.

Eventually, Liz invited Wes to play pool on the other side of the bar so Maka and Soul could have a chance to “get to know each other.” Though she was a little worried about what Liz planned to do with her date’s brother, Maka looked at her friend gratefully and pulled Soul to an empty couch in a darkened corner of the bar. She was dying to find out if he was just as caustic and awkward in person. If he was as perceptive as she knew him to be on the phone, Soul would notice how often her eyes constantly slipped down from his eyes to his mouth.

“I thought they would never leave us alone,” Maka said, slightly raising her voice to be heard over the din of the bar. “Liz is basically my babysitter.”

“God, Wes has been just as bad,” Soul replied. Leaning in, he said “To tell you the truth, he and my parents think you’re a con artist. I know, it’s crazy—”

“My family thinks you’re a sexual predator,” Maka said. Seeing his horrified face, she quickly added, “But I don’t! I never thought anything like that. You’re—you’re even better than I thought you would be!”

As dusk transitioned to night, the lights dimmed in the club and the music changed from nostalgic hits from the ‘90s and ‘00s to more recent, faster-paced house music. Still secluded on the couch, it was almost impossible Soul and Maka to hear to speak to each other.

That didn’t stop Maka from attempting to talk over the music with her own piercing voice. “I can’t believe this, you know!”

Soul leaned in again to hear her more clearly. “You what?”

“This!” Maka repeated, gesturing between the two of them. “Us, I can’t believe it!”

His face brightened with understanding. “I know! It’s like I’ve known you for ages.”

“Like I’ve known you for life!” Maka agreed.

“I was, uh,” Soul began to scratch the side of his neck and lowered his voice. “I was so worried you wouldn’t like me.”

Maka gently cupped her left ear. “What?”

He scooted closer to her on the couch and repeated, “I was so nervous!”

“Yeah, me too!”

They stared at each other, both trying and failing to hide their infectious smiles. “Maka, I just want you to know—”

The music grew louder and muffled Soul’s words. “Sorry?” Maka asked.

Rolling his eyes, Soul shifted towards her and said, “I just want you to know—”

She leaned forward even more. “I can’t hear you!”

“I just wanted to…” His eyes widened, and Maka became suddenly aware that their faces were only a few tantalizing inches apart. She tilted her head slightly to the side and Soul took his chance, closing the gap between them with a bold kiss. Maka’s heart soared, and she scooted closer, closer, all the way into his lap. While he was a little taken aback by her forwardness, Soul eagerly allowed her to further explore his mouth.

After that, Maka’s memory became fuzzy. There was touching and sighing, tongues and teeth, a blur of shots and wine spritzers. Things regained focus after Maka looked at her watch and realized that it was already 1 a.m, less than ten hours before they would catch Free’s bus back to Canada. Maybe it was the alcohol, but Wes and Liz at some point grew fond each other. As the group finally left the club, Wes had one arm draped over Liz’s shoulders as if they were old flames. If Liz’s cocky grin was anything to go by, the blonde was out for blood tonight, and she had found her prey.

Outside, Soul sleepily scrolled through his cellphone as he used something he called “Uber,” whatever that was. He informed them that a driver was on its way to take Liz and Maka to their hotel, and he would arrange another one to take him and Wes home. Before he could return to his phone, Maka lightly grabbed hold of his elbow. Seeing Soul smile at her all night convinced her that a cheeky finger wasn’t going to cut it. It was time to sell the farm. All of it.

“You don’t have to go. Not if you don’t want to,” Maka said.

Soul’s stark eyebrows rose. “What, you mean go back to the hotel with you?”

Her nod was shy, but adamant. “Yeah.”

“Well,” Soul said, faltering. She could tell that he wanted her, but something was holding him back. “If you want. It’s up to you. I don’t want you to think that—”

“Soul,” Maka said steadily, taking his hands in her own. “I’m asking you to come back with me.” She expected him to grin when the realization that he was definitely getting laid hit him, but instead Soul scooped her up in his arms and spun her around. He pressed his lips to her temple, and it dawned on her that he was not just happy about getting laid—he just happy to prolong this date and be with her.

It didn’t take any more convincing to bring Soul and Wes back to their shared Best Western hotel room, but it took some negotiation to actually get things started. Once they arrived in the hotel room, the brothers seemed a little off put by the twin beds lying side by side.

“Those beds are like two feet apart,” Soul said quietly.

“On what planet do you _share_  a hotel room?” Wes asked. “Seriously, this is New York City. The cradle of American civilization. Certainly you could afford two—hey!” Soul interrupted his brother’s train of thought with a harsh smack to the back of the head.

“Well,” Maka said thoughtfully. “We’ll take this bed, you’ll take that one. Turn off the lights and get on with it.” Her mother didn’t call her perfectly practical in every way for nothing.

The Evans brothers’ faces became almost as white as Soul’s hair. Maka was honestly beginning to wonder whether they had done this before when Liz finally spoke up. “Alright, me and Wes only came along to support you two, so we’ll go in the en suite.” She looked Maka in the eye. “But only for the first time.”

“Deal.” The internal freak-out storming within Soul calmed when Liz led his older brother into the bathroom.

Once they were alone and the noises echoing from the bathroom were dulled by the room radio, Soul’s actions made it emphatically clear that he had indeed done this before.

She woke up the next morning with a blissfully sleeping Soul snuggled behind her. Taking care not to stir him, Maka maneuvered out of the bed and began to briskly dress and pack her things. Liz was already in the bathroom touching up last night’s makeup. After packing away the last of her things and reattaching her stupid, incorrigible alarm to her waistband, Maka leaned over her bed to rouse Soul.

“Maka, don’t wake him,” Liz said suddenly.

“Why?”

The tall blonde rolled her eyes. “Right now you look like shit. Last night, you looked smoking. Let that be the memory.”

Maka bit her lip and nodded. The magic of last night had lifted. “Good point, I’ll leave a note. What about Wes?”

Liz grimaced and stuck out her tongue. “His breath smells awful, and mine’s not better. Tic tac?”

* * *

When Soul woke up that morning, the last sight he expected was his brother’s legs tangled up in hotel sheets. After crying out and shielding his eyes, he made the heartbreaking discovery that Maka had already gone. The side of the bed where she had slept still held her scent, and he unapologetically smothered himself in her pillow. It was nothing compared to Maka’s natural warmth and light, and he chastised himself for being such a heavy sleeper. Rolling to his side, Soul spied a note on the bedside table. Within moments of reading it, he leapt out of bed and dove for his pants.

“Wes! Wes!” Soul yelled. “Shit, we got to go!”

His brother stirred and ruffled the sheets already coiled around his torso. Soul noticed with growing discomfort that Wes’ chest and back were covered in hickeys and scratch marks. “Ohh I feel like I’ve been abused!” Wes groaned.

Soul tossed his brothers clothing to him, but Wes did nothing but lie limply on the bed. “Come on, we don’t have time for this!” He began to tug Wes’s sheets. “Their bus leaves in half an hour, this is my only chance to say goodbye!”

Wes winced and rubbed his temples. “Oh God, you don’t understand! Liz did things—Bro, she put things in…” His older brother grew uncharacteristically hesitant as he looked at Soul with dire eyes. The smooth timbre of his voice gradually rose in pitch with every halting word. “Did Maka, listen, did Maka? Did she? Did she stick, did she stick anything?”

While he usually prided himself on his ability to remain cool in tough situations, Soul could not contain his revulsion. “Wes, I am not discussing anything about last night with you!”

“I just need to know whether this is something that just she does, or is it a Canadian thing?”

The impulse to get as far as possible from this Best Western was getting stronger by the minute. “Why does it matter?” he asked.

_“Because if it’s something everybody does I don’t need to see a doctor!”_

“Get dressed!” Without another word, Soul bolted out the door and towards elevator. As he stepped inside, he was relieved to see Wes limping after him, mostly dressed. His brother was slipping on his shoes when the elevator doors opened to the lobby, and he hardly kept up as Soul burst out the front doors and hailed the first cab he could find. He didn’t know if this was a good idea, if Maka’s quiet departure was intentional, or if she would be even happy to see him at the bus stop. All Soul did know was that if he let her slip away so soon, the chances of never seeing her again would skyrocket. And that would not stand.

They saw the monstrosity Maka and Liz apparently traveled in before they saw either young woman. The vehicle was a dusty red, with a bumper splattered in mud and more than a dozen windows. A queue of passengers slowly boarded the bus, and Soul immediately exited the cab and scanned the line for a certain Canadian blonde across the street. He spotted her messy pigtails in the middle of the line.

“Maka!” She moved forward in the line, unaware of Soul’s calling. To catch her before she boarded the bus and went out of reach, possibly forever, he darted across the street. “Maka!”

She wheeled around and searched for the source his voice. “Soul!” Maka abandoned the queue, and their hands and mouths found each other by instinct. Both of them were worn for wear after their late night, and neither had the time to brush their teeth before leaving the hotel, but their need for each other overwhelmed all other physical sensation.

Meanwhile, Wes awkwardly stood to the side while his date flirted with another, more heavily-built guy—presumably their bus driver. “Don’t suppose I can tempt you for some Chinese later?” the burly man said.

Liz barked a single dry laugh before turning towards the bus driver. “Free, when are you going to learn? You could buy me all the chocolate, all the chow mein you like, but it won’t work and you  _know_  why. Back off or I’ll tell everyone on that bus about my trip to the doctor’s. Is that what you want? No.”

The bus driver looked absolutely crestfallen. “Sorry. How is everything, er, down there, by the way?”

Stepping onto the bus, Liz shot both Free and a slack-jawed Wes one last sultry look and balanced a cigarette between her teeth. “Ship-shape and shiny now, no thanks to you.” With one last salute, Liz boarded the bus and thus concluded Wes’ most amazing/disastrous one night stand.

Maka clung to Soul’s torso and buried her face into his chest. Though she rippled with ecstatic energy when he had caught her up in his arms, now she “Come on, babe,” Soul said, pressing her forehead to his. “I’ll see you again really soon. What’s the matter?”

“It’s stupid,” she said. They went cross-eyed looking into each other’s eyes, Maka hesitated before adding, “It’s just I told myself if I ever saw you again in the flesh, I’d—I’d tell you something. But I can’t.”

The weight of unspoken feelings and fears threatened to crush Soul to the ground, and he could tell that beneath her radiant, earnest green eyes, Maka was experiencing the same.

“Hey!” He heard his brother say. “I’m gonna Uber home now, do you wanna—oh fuck it, you don’t care.”

“If you say it, I’ll say it back,” Soul said.

“Iloveyou.” The words came out in one rapid mush, but the sentiment behind it was as deep and endless as the sea.

“I love you too,” Soul responded with a smile.

She jumped into his arms, wrapped her legs around his waist, and pulled his face towards hers in a deep, passionate kiss. Bus passengers whooped and clapped in the background, and the moment would have been utterly romantic were it not for the high-pitched whirring sound blaring in Soul’s ears.

He broke the kiss, puzzled. “What’s that?”

“Oh!” Maka’s cheeks pinked. “Just my rape alarm…”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I continue this?


	10. The Call of the Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on "Les Revenents"/"The Returned." 
> 
> Liz wakes up in the desert with only a flickering memory of the night before. When she heads back home to Death City and reunites with Kid and Patty, she learns the awful truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 of Tumblr backlog dump. Apologies for bombarding emails!

She awoke in the middle of the desert with a blistering headache. Groaning, Liz sat up and looked at the dusky sky. It was a ghostly mauve punctuated by the black hole of the moon. Dusting off her jeans, the demon pistol heaved herself to her feet.

Her memory was fucked, though she didn’t know why. She must have browned out when she went out with Patty and the others. Between the throbs in the back of her brain, she could capture only flickers of memory; clinking glasses with her sister, striking the cue ball on the pool table, laughing with an arm around Kid’s shoulders. How she ended up in the desert was still a mystery, but Death City loomed only a mile or so away. It was a good thing she was still wearing her ass-kicking leather boots. She began trekking back to the city, back to home and back to family.

The walk to Gallows Manor went by quickly. The city was unremarkable, though she did notice some restaurants and shops she had never seen before. Liz supposed it had been a while since she went shopping or out of eat in this area, so she must have missed their openings. The Manor, of course, was the same wonderful, symmetrical mansion she knew and loved. The front door was locked, so Liz snooped beneath one of the many decorative garden skulls to find the spare.

Once she was inside, Liz realized exactly how ravenous she felt. She made a beeline for the kitchen, where she found her meister quietly reading some DWMA paperwork at the table. She couldn’t repress the grin spreading across her face when she saw Lord Death, nee Death the Kid. The big baby had finally decided to change his hairstyle. Rather than letting his striped locks hang straight down, he had slicked his bangs back with hair gel. It made him look older and more mature. Most impressively, he had accomplished this hairstyle without damaging his symmetry.

Kid sensed her presence and gave her a perfunctory glance. “I wasn’t expecting you until 8 Patty, what brings–” His yellow gaze froze on Liz’s face, and his mouth was agape in astonishment.

“Hey, look at you, all sexy with your hair pushed back,” Liz joked. “It’s pretty daring. I can’t believe you were able to keep all of your lines symmetrical.”

Shock wiped all expression from Kid’s face. “Liz?”

She didn’t know the source of his confusion, but Liz also didn’t mind. Kid had an odd set of quirks, and after being his weapon for all these years, she was used to rolling with them. Liz walked to the fridge and opened it, chattering as she went. “God, I’m starving. I’m gonna need to compare notes with you and Patty, because I can’t remember a single thing from last night.” She withdrew a yogurt–did they always buy this brand?–and moved over to a drawer to retrieve a spoon.

  
“Would you believe me if I said I woke up in the desert? I don’t think anything, you know,  _creepy_  happened to me, but that’s still pretty weird. Drunk me isn’t good at walking, so making it two miles into the desert is fucking miraculous.”

With a yogurt-laden spoon in her mouth, Liz turned around to look at her meister, and she started when she saw his face a few mere inches from hers. While this could be interpreted as some creepy come on from anybody else, Liz knew that Kid was staring at her out of genuine curiosity. He silently brushed a lock of her light brown hair with his middle and forefinger.  

“How can this be?” Kid asked aloud. “I don’t understand.”

A chill ran up and down Liz’s arms as she registered the pure horror in Kid’s voice and eyes. “Is something wrong? You’re scaring me.”

His lip was quivering, and the air itself seemed to shimmer as intense emotion wracked his soul. “Liz,” Kid said with a wavering voice. “You’re dead. You’ve been dead for four years.”

* * *

Alcohol poisoning. What a dumb way to die.

Kid gave her a very brief synopsis of what had happened since her death. Everyone was sad, funerals were had, life moved on. Patty was sophomore in college, a fact that made Liz pale.  _She is older than me now._  The thought felt so foreign and wrong that she wondered if this was all some big elaborate joke they were playing on her. Until her meister pulled up his laptop and literally pulled up her obituary. He didn’t write it, but Kid did give her a heart-rending eulogy at her wake. That was also easily found on the Internet, but she didn’t want to watch it. They both purposefully avoided discussing the bereavement and grief Liz left behind.

Despite being Lord Death, the personification of death and reigning deity on this Earth, Kid was flummoxed. He accused her of being the creation of a necromancer, of being a horribly belated zombie, and of being a complete illusion, but her soul was intact so none of those could possibly be true. They sat at the kitchen table, alternating between uncomfortable questions and long periods of mutual silence.

“I’m such a shit-show,” Liz said. She put her head in her hands. “I thought I was invincible, after all we’ve been through together. Damn, I was so fucking stupid–”

“It’s alright,” Kid said. He was now at the acceptance stage of this reverse-grief she had thrust upon him. “We’ll get to the bottom of it. And you shouldn’t feel guilty. Everybody dies someday. No one knows that more than I do. ”

“Yeah, but we’re not supposed to see the consequences,” Liz said, lifting her face.  “We’re not supposed to have the benefit of hindsight. Jesus…”

They heard the sound of the front door opening and closing, and the two made terrified eye contact. “Hey Kiddo!” a chirpy voice called.

Patty.

Despite his natural paleness, Kid blanched. He quickly stood and rushed out of the kitchen to catch her at the door. Restless, Liz got up and walked back towards the fridge. She must eaten at least five yogurts at this point, but her ravaging hunger still hadn’t been quenched. Would stress-eating leave her similarly unsatisfied? She never had a chance to find out.

“What are you rambling about?” Patty’s voice echoed down the hall, and Liz could hear those familiar footfalls coming closer. “You’re gettin’ weirder than me.”

“Don’t go in there!” Kid yelped. “There’s a lot to explain!”

Laughing at her meister, Patty appeared in the kitchen doorway. The laughter quickly evaporated.

To Liz, it felt like only yesterday that she had hung out and joked around with her goofy baby sister. She hardly recognized the grown woman staring at her. Patty had grown out her golden hair, and it fell in long tresses passed her shoulders and down her back. Her choppy bangs were swept to the right and tucked behind her ear, which sported multiple ear piercings. Even her clothes looked wrong. Patty was wearing a flowery sundress punctuated with a leather jacket and her trademark black boots. Liz had always tried to convince Patty to casually wear dresses…

The sound of glass shattering startled Liz. In her examination of her formerly little sister, she did not notice the iced tea in Patty’s hand. Dark brown liquid seeped across the kitchen tiles and glass shards. Patty’s hand flew to her mouth, and her entire torso shook. Kid swiftly appeared, throwing his arm around Patty in order to give his weapon support.

Just as suddenly as she began sobbing, Patty threw off Kid and flung herself towards her sister. She buried face into Liz’s shoulders and neck. Liz held her sister’s shaking shoulders, unsure of what to do or what to say. She knew she should be crying her own tears mixed with joy and sadness, but for once in her life (ha!) Liz was unable to produce any. It was like she had forgotten how.

Liz gently enclosed her arms around her sister and stroked her long hair. She was glad to be reunited, glad to alleviate her baby sister of so much pain and loneliness, but even she could tell there was a hardened, blunt, and festering void in her resurrected soul. As they swayed in the kitchen together, one sister consoling another, Liz wondered if Patty noticed the same.


	11. The Night the Lights Went Out at Concord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now a successful Deathscythe, Soul returns to his old prep school for a gala where his brother is presenting an award. Once there, Soul learns that Wes is not as above insecurity and envy as he seems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on an awesome rant from 'Designing Women.'

Soul never thought he would ever step foot again in the Concord Academy for Music and Performance, but he was definitely glad that he was doing it with Maka on his arm and a whole career of kishin-slaying under his belt. Being second best for his entire childhood, it had always haunted him that his older brother rose to become the greatest, most awarded student Concord had ever seen. **  
**

Well, until Soul literally went to the moon and back. Becoming the Last Deathscythe and finally (finally!) earning the love of his meister sort of smoothed out his self-confidence issues.

It was due to his brother that Soul had returned to this prissy school for its even prissier student competition. Wes had returned to his high school alma mater to present the big award of the night, an award he had won himself twelve years before. The brothers had reconnected after the moon, and when Soul learned Wes was returning to the school, he volunteered to come too. 

Soul’s curiosity and newfound pride got the better of him. If he was going to rub his success in anyone’s face, this was the time. The socialites that once turned their noses up at his withdrawn personality and strange appearance had no ammunition to use against him now.

Maka was a sight to behold in her floor-length, wine-colored gown, but she was having trouble concealing her bafflement. She openly gaped at the middle-aged parents boasting about their children and gossiping over plates of hors d’oeuvres. “So this is like…” Maka trailed off, looking at the event attendees with a confused expression. “A cross between a gala…a concert…and a…beauty pageant?”

Soul nodded, not bothering to hide the self-satisfied smirk. “Minus the swimsuit part, though Wes would have won that category too if it existed. Just look around at these people, Maka. If I wasn’t a weapon,  _this_ would be my life. I would have spent high school preparing for this contest, chasing after a dumb trophy.”

“And a scholarship!” Maka added helpfully.

Soul accepted a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and continued. “Seriously, you have no idea how fucked up this place is. When you’re here, it seems like competing in the Concord whatchamacallit is the be-all, end-all of the entire universe, but it really means _fuck all._  People would rather spend their time doing this instead of like, I don’t know, feeding the homeless.”

Maka frowned at this. “But weren’t you proud of your brother? When he won?”

This elicited a roll of Soul’s eyes. “Just because Wes had one of the most meteoric, titanic rises to fame as a result of this competition doesn’t mean it’s not frivolous as fuck—”

“Soul!” He spun around and saw his brother, who was standing behind him. They hugged and clapped each other on the back, and Wes kissed Maka’s cheek. “I was just backstage giving the contestants some pointers, calming them down, you know?” Wes said, rubbing his hands together. “The big trophy is backstage if you want a look-see.”

Soul grinned. “Dude, Dad never let me touch yours. He always said he didn’t need my grubby fingerprints all over your career.”

“Don’t worry, I put enough my own boogers on it for the both of us,” Wes said with a laugh.

Maka, completely disinterested in music trophies, elected to save their seats in the auditorium while the brothers snuck backstage.

The trophy was a phallic, golden monstrosity that Soul presumed was supposed to resemble an instrument, or perhaps a medley of instruments. It was a farce, just like this whole damn gala. Even though it probably cost twenty bucks to produce this thing in a Latin American country, the school kept is preserved in a large glass case. Most of the year, it was on display in the lobby to motivate students until the final competition. Now, it was waiting in the wings to bestow some lucky bastard a lifetime of bragging rights.

Soul was about to crack a joke about how it looked like a dick when he noticed that Wes was staring at the encased trophy with covetous intensity. His brother’s gaze seemed heavy and meaningful, but Soul could not think of what thoughts were stirring behind those blue eyes.

They both said nothing for a while, looking at that the golden figure until Wes spoke up. “You know what I am, Soul?” he asked. “I’m an aging professional musician. And being here again at this event has allowed me to finally admit that I have no other talent.”

“Bullshit,” Soul responded automatically. “You know that’s not—”

“Yes it is. This—” Wes reached out and brushed his fingers against the glass. “—is what I spent my whole life doing. I know in my heart that it’s a…frivolous thing…” Soul winced at the echo of his own words, but it was what Wes said next that chilled him to the core. “…but I’m not like you,” Wes said hollowly, finally making eye contact with his brother. “You’re a deathscythe. You can do anything. Music, galas, contests—this is all I was _born_  for.”

Soul’s heart was shuddering in his ribcage. He stood stock still, speechless, unable to form a coherent response to this blasphemy.  

“You know,” Wes continued with a slight crack in his voice, looking back at the trophy. “When I was a student here, whenever I saw this trophy I would just start to breathe hard. All I could think was ‘I want to hold that trophy.’ I’ll—I’ll never forget the way it felt in my arms and the roar of the crowd. Now it’s all over. And I just don’t know if life can ever be the good again.”

With one last look at the trophy, Wes rushed away, disappearing in the labyrinthine halls that made up the backstage area. Soul was too shell-shocked to even follow him. He had always believed that Wes was above doubt, above envy, above all the insecurities that plagued other mortals, that plagued him. It was like something beneath the earth had shifted and Soul’s world was thrown off-kilter.  

Wes wasn’t washed up. He was in a category of his own. Everyone knew that, everybody, especially Wes himself, so it made no fucking sense. There was only one failure in their family, and it sure as fuck was not Wes. No way, no way…

Unable to rendezvous with Maka just yet, Soul headed into the bathroom to splash water on his face. It was in there that he heard two voices, two other men in tuxes and bowties, mention his brother’s name.

“Who was that?”

“That was Wes Evans. He won the Concord Champion Talent of the Year Prize in 2003. Remember? The joke was that he nearly burned the auditorium down with his shrieking violin.”

“Oh yeah, I remember!”

“They call him in to present the award, and he spends two entire hours before the show giving the students advice. I just wanted to tell him that times have changed man, stop embarrassing yourself! There’s nothing your crusty ass can say that they don’t already know.”  

“You really shoulda. Listen, I got to go back—”

“Yeah, I’ll meet you in the wings.”

One of them briskly left the room, leaving the other to unbutton and rebutton his jacket. Drying his hands, Soul cleared his throat.

“I’m Soul Evans, Wes Evans’ brother,” Soul said in a low voice. “I overheard a part of your conversation.”

The man pinked a little bit and laughed awkwardly. “Well, uh, sorry I didn’t know—”

“I gathered from your comments that you also didn’t know a couple other things,” Soul said in a clipped tone. “For instance, you probably didn’t know that Wes is only contestant in Concord history to sweep every category except for congeniality, which, for the record, is not something my family aspires to anyway.”

The man tugged at his collar and glanced towards the door. “That’s not—”

“Or,” Soul continued with building fury, “that when Wes walked out in his custom-tailored tuxedo, five contestants  _quit_  on the spot. Or that when the judges asked his opinion on world peace, he spoke so elegantly about war, battlefields, and trophies that grown men wept.”

The poor dude was trying to inch out of the bathroom, but Soul upon him, trapping him between the urinals. There was no stopping Soul, no end to his smoldering indignation, because when it came to extrapolating on his brother’s accomplishments, the weapon would never run out of ammunition.

“And you probably didn’t know that Wes wasn’t just a Concord Champion, he was _the_  Concord Champion. He didn’t just play the violin, that violin was on fire! And when a stagehand smashed a transformer and showered the darkened arena with sparks, he continued playing with unparalleled emotion and skill. And when his piece was over, 12,000 people leaped to their feet for sixteen and half uninterrupted minutes of thunderous ovation while the flames illuminated his tear-stained face! And that—” Soul’s voice, dripping with venom, lowered. “—just so you will know, and so your children will someday know, was  _the night the lights went out at Concord!”_

The bathroom became still, save for the shivering of the gala guest. “Sorry,” he squeaked. “I didn’t know.”

Soul stood tall and smug with a smile more satisfied than the one he arrived with. “Now you do.” Walking out of that bathroom was one of the best damn feeling he had in recent memory, not as good as finally making it with Maka, but definitely better than returning from the moon. His only regret was that he didn’t know how to make Wes feel the same way.

After the show had ended and another pimply teenager walked away with the trophy, his older brother approached Soul and Maka with a knowing grin. They made small talk and congratulated Wes on a good show, and after Maka went to chase down a waiter (“That competition was _four hours long_ , I am starving!”), Wes lightly punched Soul’s arm.

“You sounded a lot like Mom,” Wes said. “When you flayed that guy, I mean. Mom never used to say fuck either when she was all high on righteous fury.” Soul’s gaze darted to the ground and he scratched his face. He had not know his brother had heard anything at all, and it felt a little embarrassing that his brother knew about what could only have been described as an uncool, out of control rant. “What? You know those walls are thin.”

“Well I guess I can save you the same spiel,” Soul said. “It kind of made the last guy shit himself.”


	12. Elevator Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maka keeps running into the same cute guy on the elevator in her office building. When she finally gets the courage to talk to him, they become trapped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A giveaway fic for basingsaying!

When Maka slipped on her fire engine red high heels that morning, she told herself it was because they made her feel unstoppable, powerful. They were so vibrant, sleek, and dare she say it, sexy that Maka could not help but walk with the confidence and venom of a black widow spider. They were her “forged in Mount Doom to conquer the corporate world” shoes. They were her “don’t make a Wizard of Oz joke or I’ll step on your face” shoes. **  
**

And they were not at all for the benefit of Cute Elevator Guy.

Her office building was a whopping 28 stories, and despite the sheer volume of people and the astronomical improbability of seeing anyone more than once in one of the ten available elevators, Maka and Cute Elevator Guy crossed paths on a somewhat regular basis.

The first time it happened was a pure fluke. Maka had been squished inside a full elevator, and as the brassy doors had closed, a tan hand shot between them. The doors had opened once more, and a tall man with shaggy white hair and a loose tie shoved his way inside. Maka quickly found herself pressed into the front left corner of the elevator, and stuck inside that stuffy room, she could not help but hate this man.

“Could you get 18?” he said. Maka stared for a moment, not realizing that he was in fact talking to her. Mumbling, she hit the button for the 18th floor, and the elevator began its slow ascent.

People began filing out around floor eight, and as the elevator grew less crowded, the people inside readjusted themselves. Maka had once read that people on elevators constantly shuffled their positions so the amount of passengers on every side was equal. If there were five passengers, one would stand alone in the middle while the other four flanked her sides in groups of two. This psychological pattern held true until Maka and Cute Elevator Guy were the last remaining people. They were supposed to stand on either side, equidistant from the center of the car. While she had done her part and stayed toward the left, he was standing directly in the middle, slightly leaning towards her. Neither of them looked at each other, and they silently stared ahead at the doors until the elevator arrived at his floor.

After the elevator dinged and the doors crawled open, Cute Elevator Guy finally turned to her to wish Maka a good day. His eyes, shockingly enough, were a bright, burning, “There’s no place like home” red. She wished him the same before he left.

Maka worked on the 25th floor, one of the highest in the building. She almost always was the first to get on when the elevator went down and the last to get off when it went up. It thus wasn’t a surprise when her elevator took a pitstop at floor 18 on her way down to lunch on the same day. When Cute Elevator Guy walked in, they gave each other a nod of acknowledgement before riding to the bottom in mutual silence.

Their encounters grew more numerous. It was almost ridiculous how often they rode the same elevator at the same time. Whether she was arriving to work, going on her lunchbreak, dashing out for errands, or seeking out coffee, six times out of ten Cute Elevator Guy would appear for a portion of her ride up or down. Maka still didn’t know his name, and she still hadn’t told him hers, but she couldn’t help but wonder how this kept happening. Twenty eight floors, ten elevators, several hundred people. What were the odds?

It became a joke between them. One day, when Maka was going to pick up a package from the post office during her lunch break, she couldn’t help but smile when the elevator slowed its descent as it reached the 18th floor.The doors opened, and Cute Elevator Guy’s face lit up when he saw her.

“Again?” He asked with a cocky grin. “Do you just ride elevators up and down all day to chase me down?”

Normally this sort of talk would annoy her, but instead it made her laugh. “I don’t pursue,” Maka said. “People find me.” As a rule, Maka Albarn didn’t chase men down unless they needed a swift chop to the head.

Cute Elevator Guy nodded. “I believe it.” Maka enjoyed the way his red eyes brightened when he smiled.

She began to look out for him. Maka’s work was dry and mind-numbing, and seeing her elevator friend always made her day a little easier to bear. Whenever the elevator approached 18, her breath would hitch and she would stare at the blinking floor counter. If it passed the floor, she would release the breath she was holding and grumble with impatience. If the door opened and someone other than Cute Elevator guy emerged, Maka would send blatantly sour looks at the imposters. And if it was him, the two or so sentences they exchanged was enough brighten her entire mood.  

So maybe she didn’t actually hate this man. Maybe she did fix her posture and sweep treasonous wisps of hair behind her ear before getting on elevators. And yes, maybe she had a crush on those deep red eyes that immediately came to mind when she bought a pair of new heels. It didn’t matter, because at the end of the day they were still strangers and nothing more.

The day she finally wore the red heels, Maka left the office to grab a much-needed Diet Coke from the convenience store across the street. She was utterly blindsided when the elevator arrived at her floor and Cute Elevator Guy was already standing inside. Though he was usually very composed, a look of shock engulfed Cute Elevator Guy’s face. The expression was fleeting, and Maka resolved to tease out what it meant.

It was just the two of them again. Maka entered the elevator, and after the doors closed she turned to the other rider. “This floor is a little high for you, isn’t it?” she asked.

His cheeks pinked a little despite his stoic face, and he scratched his neck. “I got on an up elevator by mistake. Rather than getting off, I decided to ride it until it went down again.”

She began to nod understandingly, but a thought made her pause. “So you’re saying that we weren’t even supposed to be on the same elevator?” Maka asked. “You’re supposed to be riding a different down elevator, but then you accidentally got on an up elevator, and now we’re in the same elevator, which wasn’t even supposed to happen because we’re both going down from two different floors at two different times, and there are ten entire elevators for us to choose from.”

Cute Elevator Guy gave her a blank stare. “You’ve said ‘elevator’ so many times that I don’t even know what it means anymore.”

Maka put a hand on her popped hip. “I’m just saying that there is some weird elevator magic going on here. I see you all the time, and I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Soul.”

The admission of his name came so easily, Maka marveled that she never had the nerve to ask it before. She held out her hand, and he gave it a languid shake. “Maka,” she said. His hands felt nice, warm. They broke apart and returned to their own quadrants of the elevator, as psychology dictated. There was so much she wanted to know about him, probably starting with his unusual name and ending with his elevator riding habits. Maka opened her mouth to ask about his job, but he spoke first.

“I like your shoes,” he murmured.

Pleased, Maka briefly rose on her toes and shifted back on to her heels. Finally! “Thank you! They’re my–”

The elevator car abruptly halted, causing Maka to topple sideways into Soul. He caught her with one hand on her arm and another on her waist, but just as they regained balance the lift lurched up and down, sending both riders to their knees. The entire lift shuddered and rattled before the ceiling and button lights flickered off and the elevator became still.

They were consumed in utter blackness. The usual whir and rumble of the elevator had completely vanished, and Maka could hear nothing but her and Soul’s ragged breathing. He was holding her, and she shivered when he unknowingly exhaled near her neck. She didn’t realize they had fallen so close.

“Are you okay?” Soul asked. “Maka, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said, shifting away from him. Her eyes adjusted to the dark, allowing her to vaguely discern Soul’s form, the elevator door, and the controls. “A little caught off guard, but fine. Sorry about falling on you.”

“Don’t sweat it. You’re only kinda boney, so I didn’t get too hurt.” She lightly jabbed him in the ribs, hard enough for him to get the point but light enough that it was still playful. They had never spoken long enough to casually banter or insult each other before, and for a moment Maka appreciated this baby step in their fledgling friendship.

A moment later, panic set in. They were trapped in a dark, immobile elevator. Maka didn’t tell anyone that she was going out for Diet Coke, and no coworker to her knowledge made note of her exit. Nobody knew where she was, save for the person who was stranded with her. They were well and truly stuck.

“Are you one of those people who gets freaked out in tight spaces?” Soul asked.

“No,” she answered. “You?”

“I don’t like it, but I’ll be fine.”

Maka nodded, grateful that no one was going to have a panic attack in their darkened elevator car. Well, since sitting stunned wasn’t going to solve their problem, Maka fully extricated herself from what she realized was Soul’s lap and stood on steady feet. She first swung her purse over her shoulder and walked over to the control panel. There were emergency mechanisms built into these things. Pressing the right button ought to get their situation sorted out fast. Using her phone for light, she pressed the button labeled “IN EMERGENCY PUSH.” She expected an alarm to sound, but was promptly disappointed. She pressed it again–nothing. A third time–silence. Growling, Maka began to push the button furiously.

Maka ceased her button pushing when she felt a friendly, comforting presence behind her. “We should call someone,” Soul suggested. He had joined her at the control panel. “Does your phone have service? Mine doesn’t.” A quick glance at her phone proved that no, Maka’s phone did not have service in this elevator car, which was suspended in an elevator shaft some 20 stories above the ground.

Their next best option was to use the phone built into the elevator–another safety precaution. Pushing a button with a phone icon above it popped open a small compartment, which held a phone connected to a curled wire inside. Soul drew it out of the compartment and put it to his ear.

“Can you work it?” Maka asked.

Soul removed the phone from his ear to give her a withering look. “Do I know how to work an analog phone?”

“I mean is it functioning or not?”

He sighed and replaced it on the receiver. “I don’t even have a dial tone.”

“Unbelieveable,” Maka said. “Are these emergency buttons here for  _decoration?”_

“Maybe we won’t need them,” Soul said. He paused before looking at Maka thoughtfully. “Have you ever seen ‘Die Hard?’”

Maka soon found herself slipping off her red heels and tucking the fabric of her flouncy skirt between her legs. Thank god she did not wear a pencil skirt to work today. With a lot of coordination and bickering, Maka was able to get on top of Soul’s shoulders using only their cellphones for light. When Soul slowly rose to his full height, Maka’s thighs squeezed his skull to maintain her balance.

“Please don’t crush me between your legs,” Soul said. “Well, not like this.”

That was a fantasy Maka enjoyed very much, but now was not the time. “Less joking, more standing.” With her phone clutched in her hand, Maka carefully examined the ceiling, searching for a vent or trap door. She had never before realized how complicated the elevator ceiling was. A large square panel contained the elevator lights, and it jutted out from the middle. Though it was rather reckless, she pulled on it. The panel did not budge. Puffing out her cheeks, Maka ran her hands along the edges searching for a seam, and she frowned when all she felt were a few screws. Contrary to the events of ‘Die Hard,’ this plan wasn’t going to work.

Soul was more optimistic, if not a little pushy. “Just unscrew them!” he said.

“Oh, I’ll just pull a screwdriver out of my bra and get to it then.”

“It doesn’t have to be a screwdriver. Maybe you can use your nails.”

Maka gave his head another squeeze to shut him up. It was incredibly effective.

Soul knelt to the ground so she could hop off his sloping shoulders. Once Maka had smoothed her skirt, she began to pace. “We were about five floors down from my office when this happened,” Maka thought aloud. “This means we are either at another floor or we are between floors. It’s likely that we can get someone’s attention in the floor lobby, if we scream loud enough.”

Soul did not wait for Maka to say anything more. Illuminated only by the light of Maka’s phone, he knocked hard on the elevator door. “Hullo! Can anybody hear me? Anybody?”

Maka gingerly placed her phone, their light source, on the floor. Then, with the fury and power of an outraged banshee, she wheeled towards the door and began to beat it with white-knuckled fists. “WE ARE TRAPPPPPPPED! GET US OUT!”

Soul joined in. “GET US THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”

“THIS PIECE OF SHIT ELEVATOR IS STUCK!”

“CALL THE POLICE!”

They pounded on the elevator doors and screamed obscenities for ten minutes before they heard a muffled exclamation on the other side. It was hard to make out the words, but at least someone knew where they were. At least there was a chance that someone was getting help.

Their throats were hoarse from the yelling, and their arms ached from exhaustion. The two slid down the back wall of the elevator, shoulder to shoulder, and sank to the ground. They sat once again in complete darkness because they were conserving their phone batteries until the fire department or a janitor or someone finally came to free them. Maka was still barefoot, and her red shoes were piled next to her purse.  

“Maka,” Soul said with a low, hoarse voice. “I have to tell you something.” Knowing full well that it was too dark for him to catch a glimpse beneath her skirt, Maka shifted and hugged her knees.

“The thing is,” Soul began. “I didn’t get on the up elevator by accident. I was actually going to your office.”

Maka had been so consumed by being trapped in an elevator that she had forgotten the details of how they ended up in the same car in the first place. “What? Why?” Her voice was a little raspy, too.

“Well, I, uh–” He paused. “I wanted to ask you to lunch or coffee or something. Have a real conversation for once.”

“Like a date?” Her heart thundered in her chest.

Soul’s clothes rustled as he shrugged. “If you are down with that. I wanted to see you outside of an elevator.” He snorted. “Obviously that plan went to shit. I have the worst fucking luck.”

“Hey, it’s not all bad,” Maka said. “If you didn’t try to visit me, I’d be stuck in here all alone. That seems like good luck to me.”

“Huh, good point.”

Silence fell between them for a few more minutes. Sitting close as they were, Maka let her head fall limp on his shoulder. As shitty as this entire situation was, at least is had allowed her to get to know him better. “I’d be ok with going on a date,” she said with a faint blush. “But only if our destination has high ceilings. And windows.”

“How about patio seating?” Soul asked thickly. She glanced up at his face, and even in the penetrating darkness she could see him smiling.

“Yes! I would do anything for a Diet Coke and a little sky right–”

With the speed and sudden movement of a roller coaster, the elevator began to plummet at thrice its normal speed. The elevator car’s motion was sudden enough that Maka’s body briefly lifted off the floor, and her stomach flip-flopped in her torso. Soul and Maka collided like magnets, holding each other in the dark as they screamed their remaining lungs out.

After dropping for what felt like an eternity, the elevator car abruptly slowed, and once it came to a smooth stop, it dinged. The doors flew open, and light flooded the small enclosed space. Maka was blinded, and through squinted eyes she saw a lobby full of various maintenance professionals and firemen waiting for them. Soul was the one to help her to her feet, and he was also the one to pick up Maka’s forgotten red heels as they staggered out.

They spent roughly two hours in that suspended metal deathtrap. Both Soul and Maka were entitled to several thousand dollars in compensation for the lift’s shoddy emergency measures and the building’s inability to get them out without sending them on a bender. Neither were interested in suing just yet. After getting her shoes back and telling her boss that no, she was not coming back into work that day or the next day, the two left the building for a much-earned drink.  

The sky never looked brighter or more wonderful than their first date.


	13. Knifey Wifey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Maka accompanies Soul to his parents' anniversary party, a miscommunication occurs. Most of the family erroneously believes Maka and Soul to be married. She swallows her feelings and plays along, only to get a glimpse of what being loved by Soul would actually be like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Giveaway fic for Lochess! Lightly based upon a Friends episode, since its been ages since I've done that.

Maka had only met Soul’s parents once when she received an invitation on weighty cardstock to their 25th wedding anniversary celebration. Soul normally eschewed all Evans family gatherings, but they were in the area for a mission anyway and couldn’t stay away. **  
**

The event took place in a grand ballroom ablaze with gold and dark red. Party goers were mostly the old and the wealthy, making Maka and Soul among the youngest in attendance. Soul’s father was remarkably absent at his own party, which, according to her weapon, was pretty usual behavior. Knowing no one, the partners said hello to Soul’s mother the moment they arrived.

Their exchange of niceties with Soul’s mother was interrupted by a rotund man in a gold waistcoat and blazer clapping her weapon on the back. The sudden contact clearly surprised Soul, who flinched.

“Congratulations!” the man boomed. Soul stared, clearly confused. Why would this man, who Maka took to be one of Soul’s more eccentric family members, congratulate them? The battle on the moon occurred almost four years ago. “Ariana and I are very happy for you. Best of wishes! Find me a bit later, and I might have a little,” he leaned in and shot Soul an obvious wink, “gift for you.”

They watched the man stride away and towards a waiter bearing champagne flutes. “Hem, hem.” Soul’s mother wore a tight smile. “Can I quickly talk to you to over here?” Cressida linked her arm with her son’s and pulled him to the side of the ballroom. Her beautiful face was mired with stress and anxiety.

“Our family and friends aren’t all accepting people. Old-fashioned, old money. They–that is to say we–don’t walk a mile in anyone’s shoes if they aren’t designer.” She released a tittering laugh, but Maka and Soul stared, neither finding her joke very funny. Cressida looked to her son imploringly. “We adore Maka, and your father and I are so proud of what you’ve accomplished as a weapon. We just thought it would be easier to explain your situation if we just told everyone you were married.”

Maka and Soul looked at each other with similar expressions of shock. Neither were prepared to be married to anyone, and Maka wasn’t sure she would ever want to be married at all. Fantasies about her weapon didn’t count as a true desire to settle down and get married. The very idea was too unlikely to seriously consider, even though Maka’s mind had drifted in that direction many times. In fact, it was drifting there right now.

“Mom,” Soul said steadily. “Why would you do that?”

“Well you live together, and do all these, these  _things_  together, and it just makes more sense for you to be married.”

“More sense than just admitting that she’s just my meister?”

Cressida cupped her son’s cheek. “Exactly. I knew you would understand.” She shuffled away with unprecedented speed, leaving Soul and Maka alone in the corner, contemplating the outrageous act they now had to play.

Maka wasn’t exactly in love with the institution of marriage, but she was in love with her weapon. It often felt like they were toeing the line between partners and lovers, and she never made that next step because on some level Maka knew Soul wasn’t actually interested. Any signals on his end were symptoms of living together, fighting together, and, nearly, dying together. There was a distinct difference between falling in love and becoming attracted to the body that just always happened to be nearby, a clear chasm between pining for the heart, mind, and soul of the person sleeping in the room next to yours and simply feeling lonely.

While suffering in silence wasn’t Maka’s style, going to great lengths to preserve the deepest and most meaningful relationship in her life was. Sucking up her feelings and pressing onward was a small price to pay for her best friend.

“We aren’t doing this,” Soul said, oddly composed. With a sick twist in her chest, Maka realized that her weapon probably found this charade annoying at best and repulsive at worst. His calm was actually a comfort. It hurt to hear him say that he didn’t want to be married to her, even if it was only for pretend, but at least Maka would never know exactly how disgusted and disturbed he felt about the idea. “We just have to set the record straight. Jesus, since did living together automatically mean marriage?”

“Maybe we won’t have to explain anything,” Maka suggested. “This is your parents’ anniversary party. Who is going to pay attention to us anyway?”

Soul nodded and his shoulders relaxed. He didn’t like being in the spotlight, especially for something as ridiculous as this.

Soul’s relative in the golden waistcoat quickly found them again, grinning from ear to ear. This time, a couple of older women dressed in long gowns were trailing after him. “Here they are!” he boomed. “The newlyweds!”

Cornered, Maka exchanged and uncertain look with her weapon. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding–”

“Don’t think I forgot about your two! Here you are!” the man said. He withdrew a paper from his inner jacket pocket with a sweeping flourish and handed it to Maka. It was a check. She turned it over, and her jaw slackened when she saw the amount. Over her shoulder, Soul was also transfixed by the money in her hand. Underneath the amount, Soul’s relative had written, ‘Congratulations!’ in looped script.

The partners, so attuned to each other’s thoughts and buzzing wavelengths, did not need to look at or speak to each other to come to a silent agreement. Soul slipped his hand along the small of Maka’s back, and she leaned into him with a broad smile.

“Thanks so much,” Soul said, pocketing the check.

“We’re sorry we couldn’t invite you to the ceremony,” Maka said. “It was pretty spontaneous. We really wish you had been there.”

“Not at all!” the uncle said. “You should probably say hello to your Aunt Muriel. She was looking for you…”

They were soon surrounded by a small crowd of family members and acquaintances, each enrapt in the ups and downs of their so-called romance. “We were married on a clifftop,” Maka shared, threading her fingers with Soul’s. “It was sunset, and the sky was turning from orange to purple–”

“I rode in on my motorcycle,” Soul added. He was still collecting fifty dollar bills and checks from various family members. Now that a few people had given Soul and Maka belated wedding gifts, it seemed that everybody wanted to save face and give their own gifts as well. “That’s also how we arrived to and left the reception. It had cans attached to it and everything, and I did a wheelie–”

“Anyway!” Maka said. “It was a very quiet ceremony; just our immediate families. It was very simple and elegant. My dress had a five foot long train–”

“Tony Bennett played ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ when Maka walked down the aisle,” Soul said, exchanging a smirk with his meister. “Everybody cried. Especially me. What else could I do? She was so beautiful.” Soul turned to Maka, and they exchanged the most gooey, lovelorn looks they could muster. Onlookers cooed and brought their hands to their chests as if to calm their rapidly beating hearts.

Maka was on the verge of collapsing from laughter. This was so overtop and out of character for her weapon, and despite her longing and secret wishes, Maka knew she would never want a wedding this sugary sweet–even if Soul was the groom.

“Tony Bennett? But I thought this was only family?” Another party guest asked.

Soul slapped his palm to his forehead. “Totally my mistake. Tony and I are so close, I always forget he isn’t family. Man, how embarrassing.”

“Soul, how did you propose?” This question came from what one of Soul’s great aunts. Her hair was incredibly thin, and she had unevenly drawn in her eyebrows so that one brow looked surprised while the other was decidedly suspicious. Her inquisitive leer made both Soul and Maka cringe. “We all love a good proposal story!”

The ball was in Soul’s court now. Maka lifted a champagne flute off of a passing waiter and sipped it while her weapon scratched his neck. “Well, uh, it wasn’t a huge gesture,” Soul started, a little uncertain. “The day we met at Shibusen, I wanted her to get an idea of what type of person I was, so I took her to a cafe and played the piano.” A woman in the back sighed. “The song I played encapsulated everything about me, and when she said she liked what she heard we became partners.”

One lady gasped. “This reminds me of when my Archibald–”

“Shhhh, I want to hear this!” Maka hissed.

“Well,” Soul continued, “When I realized that I wanted to, uh, spend the rest of my life with her, I wrote a new song. Except instead of being all about me, it was all about us. And I took her back to that same cafe, the same piano, and I taught her some of the chords. We played it together, and then, um–” Soul’s cheeks were tinged with pink. He swallowed. “I didn’t even have to say anything, she just knew what I was going to ask. So yeah, that’s how it happened.”

They collected a total of $800 that night from various relatives and family friends, all of which were positively enamored with Soul and Maka’s ‘love story.’ The controlled timbre of Soul’s voice as he retold the tale of their so-called engagement echoed in Maka’s head after they left the event and walked back to their hotel in all of their glamorous finery.

“You know what?” Soul said as they linked arms.  “I think I’m going to use my money to take my wifey out to dinner.”

“I think my knifey has forgotten who takes out who in this partnership,” Maka replied. “Also, it’s our money. Joint bank accounts, remember?”

“I’ve been married to you for only a few hours and you’re already such a nag.”

She laughed at that, but afterwards she bit her lip, unsure whether to continue this painful conversation.“Remember when you were telling everyone about that proposal?” Maka asked. “Did you just make that up on the spot?”

They walked silently for several paces while Soul chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I mean,” Soul started. “Our whole marriage was made up on the spot. ”

“I know! I just thought it sounded really good for something improvised.”

“Oh.” Both his wavelength and his facial expression were uninterpretable. Why had he suddenly become so closed off? “You liked that?”

“Yeah! It would have been really hard to turn down.”

Her bright enthusiasm for his fictional proposal made their interactions both awkward and wistful for the rest of the night. In the hotel room, Maka avoided prolonged eye contact with her weapon for fear of catching his eyes too long and revealing the truth bubbling within her. She caught him looking at her a little longer than usual when they took turns getting ready for bed in the bathroom, but his gaze was too fleeting to be important.

Though they slept on twin beds, the partners rolled over to face each other as they finally succumbed to sleep.


	14. Captured!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Maka is captured by a cult, Black Star and Soul go undercover to rescue her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was based on my favorite mission from Dragon Age: Origins, but it's post-Manga canonverse. Soul/Black Star Buddy Fic with a side helping of SoMa angst that turns out OK in the end. A lot of black comedy. No one betaed this, I apologize for errors.
> 
> Warnings for a little gore, dead bodies, and black comedy.

She was sprawled on the cold ground, naked but for her bra and panties, when she finally drifted into consciousness. Groaning, Maka rolled onto her side, only to bump into cool metal bars. She was in a cage of sorts. Sitting up, Maka saw what lay behind the bars; a currently occupied rack, tied up bodies hanging from the ceiling on meathooks, and iron pokers heating in a fireplace.

Maka finally remembered where she was-Fort Maiden, the last stronghold of a cult leader long suspected of eating human souls and conspiring with rogue witches. If she escaped-when she escaped-Maka would probably have all the evidence she needed to get Shibusen to move in. It was just getting out that was the problem.

In fact, only one living soul was in the room with her, and he was sitting on the other side of the room with the prison keys looped around his neck on a long chain. She eyed the glinting key critically. If her weapon was here, she wouldn't need anything as mundane as a key. They would just slice apart the whole cage until there was nothing left but small metal splinters.

Soul! He must be going mad with with worry. The idea of him discovering her missing, frantically calling their friends, believing the worst, and internally falling apart as he grasped at straws was too easy to imagine. Her weapon took her safety more personally than she did, and he would no doubt train his whole self, body, mind, and soul, into finding her again and bringing her home.

Was rescue even possible? The fort was heavily guarded, fortified, and surrounded by a moat. There was only one door leading past the front wall, and once inside there was only one entrance into this chamber. It took only a brief glimpse with her soul perception to know that the entire building was full to the brim with armed, evil souls. Shibusen would never attempt a full frontal assault, not when Maka was held hostage inside and the amount of enemies was so great.

No one was coming for her. None of her friends-not even Soul-were that stupid.

* * *

"A whole fort versus me," Black Star muttered with his signature grin. "These are chances I like."

Soul appeared at Black Star's side, looking far more furtively at the looming castle than his boastful friend. He wasn't so self-centered to assume that Black Star wasn't stressed too-Maka was like a sister to the ninja-but the scythe would have had more faith in Black Star's abilities if he took the situation a little more seriously.

Since discovering Maka's bed empty, denial had become Soul's coping mechanism of choice. She wasn't hurt. Of course she wasn't, because if she was Soul would have known, he would have felt it inside him, sharp and deep like a machete to the neck. The possibility of Maka being dead was too fucking ludicrous to even consider. Soul wasn't going to waste his time thinking about things that were just not fucking true, not when Maka was waiting for him inside that stone monstrosity, surrounded by enemies.

"Let's get into costume." Black Star said, shrugging off his knapsack. He unzipped it and withdrew a dark red garment. "Soul, my man, tonight I'm gonna give you a lesson in stealth. Let your god show you how it's done."

Soon, Soul was dressed in a dark red velvet jacket with gold trimming and buttons. His pants were a matching red with shimmering piping running up his inseam and the sides of his pant legs. Black Star was in a similar getup, except his trousers were gold with crimson stripes. He literally could not have chosen more flamboyant disguises for their subterfuge. This rescue mission already felt like surefire shit show, but no one else thought storming the castle in the dead of night was a good idea, and beggars can't be choosers when their soulmate's life hung in the balance.

Black Star extracted several soft red balls out of his knapsack, but they quickly got away from him and slipped out of his arms and onto the ground. "Do you want these or the pogo stick?" the ninja asked. "Your choice."

"I'll take the balls," Soul said humorlessly. He did not think he would have a chance to show off his nonexistent juggling skills, so what harm was it to carry them around?

It was Soul's humble opinion that Fort Maiden looked like a tacky movie set from a B-horror movie. The cult it housed was definitely going for a medieval vibe with its murky moat and moss-covered drawbridge.

As they crossed the moat bridge, the two guards at the door whispered to each other, suspicious. "And what are you two supposed to be?" One of the guards sneered.

"Circus performers," Black Star said. "We were hired to visit because morale was low. The higher-ups were concerned."

The two guards looked at each other and then back at Soul and Black Star. "What is it exactly you two...do?"

Black Star surprised Soul by having an answer already prepared. "I'm an acrobat, a knife thrower, a strong man, and a tiger wrestler, basically the star of the whole thing, but the two of us together, we're like clowns. We're hi-larious."

Soul couldn't suppress an annoyed sigh. "Your friend doesn't talk much, does he?" The larger of the two guards asked.

"He's saving it up. He takes comedy very seriously."

The guards seemed mostly convinced, and they loudly deliberated amongst themselves. "White hair, blue hair, they look like clowns," one of them said. "Do you think we get to watch their act?"

"I dunno. I never heard anything about any circus freaks coming through," the other said. "Maybe we should get the captain. He'll clear this up."

The two boys were ushered to the captain's office. They were inside for a total of forty seconds before the captain was tied up and the guards were knocked out and stripped of their armor. Two new guards-one short with an arrogant stride and one tall with a severe slouch-emerged from the room carrying archaic spears they didn't really know how to use.

This charade was much more effective than the juggler act. No one questioned them as they continued down the hallway, traveling deeper and deeper into the bowels of the castle.

It quickly became clear to Soul that Fort Maiden was a maze, and if they didn't ask for directions or find a map he would be stuck wandering the castle forever-or at least until someone discovered that the captain was tied up and his guards impersonated by supposed circus performers. The halls all looked the same, and were it not for the din of laughter and jeering coming from somewhere, Soul and Black Star's grand rescue mission might have never succeeded.

They discovered a vast mess hall chock full of armored cronies with various weaponry and accessories. Soul couldn't help but wonder whether they had all gone to Cults R Us and bought out the whole store in their effort to make their evil organization look real and dangerous. Of course, the costuming had some substance behind it; they had kidnapped Maka after all under his nose. The knowledge that the most precious person to him in the world was so quickly captured by this farce of a cult cut deep. It was his job to keep Maka safe, and the fact that he had to rescue her at all meant he had failed spectacularly.

While various cult members clashed beer steins and laughed heartily, Black Star tapped on one guy's shoulder. "So where's the dungeon?"

"Just go down the hall, take two lefts, and head down the stairs," the guy said. "But aren't you assigned to the captain? Why are you going to the dungeon?"

Black Star had no lie prepared, so he did the next big thing-he bent low, grabbed the edge of the long table, and flipped it with all his might. The action apparently tipped off all the soldiers that Soul and Black Star were not who they said they were, and all hell promptly broke loose.

As a weapon, Soul was never talented at fighting hand to hand, especially without his meister nearby to guide and bolster him. Brawling in the halls of the fort was different. It was precisely his meister's absence that had suddenly improved his skills, because when the stakes were this high, he simply had no choice but to fight tooth and blade.

"Soul, look out!" Black Star called. Soul whirled around and landed a particularly satisfying punch on the first guard he came face-to-face with. Sure he was smaller and clumsier than the ones Black Star was fighting, but Soul couldn't help but feel a little proud when he watched the poor guy to crumple to the ground and drop his single-handed axe. A larger guard tried to grab Soul from behind, but was quickly thrown off when the deathscythe unleashed multiple blades from his torso. It wasn't the same as fighting in sync with Maka, but he couldn't deny that he enjoyed it at least a little bit.

The once empty mess hall was now strewn with unconscious bodies. Not bad, all things considered.

His ninja friend clapped Soul on the back. "That first guy you clocked?" Black Star gave Soul a thumbs up. "Nice!" Soul grinned and they high-fived.

They followed the path pointed out to them by that ever-so-helpful cult member, yet the excitement of reuniting with Maka was edged with lingering fear and dread.

Once the dungeon's large double iron doors came into view, the air itself grew hot and oppressive. It smelled foul, like rotten eggs and burnt flesh. After thrusting open the doors, the boys were paralyzed by the rush of stench wafting from within. Black Star pinched his nose and paused at the entrance.

"Go reach out your soul and stuff to her. I don't wanna go in," the ninja said nasally. Black Star could not sense his way out of a paper bag, let alone perceive Maka's soul floating somewhere in the dungeon's putrid, murky depths.

Soul expanded his wavelength and received no reply. "I can't sense her," Soul said, frowning. "But then again, she's usually the one reaching out to me. I meet her halfway. Maybe she's just too far in."

"Or maybe this is the wrong room."

"How many dungeons do you think are in this place?"

They stood silently for a moment. "Well if you want to go in there so badly, let's go!" Black Star said. He was striving to sound haughty and careless again, but he was failing. Between all the bluffing, brawling, and costume changes, they had forgotten what was truly at stake. This mission wasn't for fun. It was dangerous, it was urgent, and for all they knew a bruised, battered, and possibly dead meister was waiting for them down the hall.

Soul forced his eyes upward, glancing at the bodies hanging from the ceiling on meathooks. Once he was sure none of them was Maka (the thought of her strung up like that caused his limbs to tremble), he scanned the room. There were a couple of large cages attached to the walls, all of which were empty with wide open doors. A man lay naked and unconscious by one of them, and looked so peaceful he might have been just asleep.

A shallow set of stairs led into a pit in the middle of the room. This was where the smell of filth, rot, and burnt flesh was rising from. Every one of Soul's instincts began to scream in protest, and a chill rippled up his arms and down his spine as his eyes settled on a blonde figure on a gurney and wrapped in a bloody towel.

There were many times when Soul had thought about what would happen if his worst nightmare became reality. Would he fall to his knees and unleash a raw, unrestrained wail of agony? Would he rush to her side and cradle her head in his lap, where he would press his lips to her icy, lifeless cheek one last time before crying bitter tears? Would he simply succumb to blurred rage and show the world what happens when you cross a bereaved Deathscythe?

Soul did not do any of those things. When he saw the body on the table, bloody and covered by a dank cloth, he swayed and gripped the railing beside him. The sight of it made him numb and sick, as if his body was physically rejecting the truth he saw before him. He violently retched, his mouth began to taste of acid, and hot tears stung his naturally bloodshot eyes. He could hardly stand from his compulsive shaking and choking, and before Soul knew it he was on his knees, eyes swimming, mind reeling because oh god, oh god.

While Soul slowly was reduced to a gagging, crying mess, his friend had silently approached the table. After he looked at the body's face, Black Star snorted. "False alarm! This is some other lady." He gruffly grabbed the corpse's hair and lifted its head so he could peek at the face. "Not our girl. Maka's way uglier than this."

Like a flipped switch, Soul ceased his coughing and weeping. He quietly got to his feet, wiped the vomitous spittle off his mouth, and joined Black Star at the gurney. The ninja was right. This wasn't Maka at all.

Just abruptly as he had gotten sick, Soul chest heaved with silent laughter. He struggled to breath as giggles continued to erupt, so much so that he had to brace himself against the gurney and the corpse.

"I'm just-I'm so relieved," he gasped.

Black Star sucked in his lips and shook his head. "Your moral compass is seriously messed. Show some respect for the deceased."

"Don't pretend you aren't happy too."

"Yeah, but you don't see me laughing at a dead body, you sicko. Swear to Kid's symmetrical underoos, sometimes I think you and Maka love each other a little too much."

Now that Soul had calmed down and the possibility of Maka being alive was once again burning and real, the two climbed the stairs out of the torture pit. This was definitely where Maka was supposed to be, but now that they had confirmed that none of the dead bodies belonged to Maka Albarn, the question of where she had gotten to became more urgent.

Since Maka was (thankfully) nowhere in the disgusting pit of death, they returned to the main dungeon room. Every cage was empty, but there was a passed out guy on the floor right next to one.

They examined the unconscious, stripped man. "He doesn't look very beat up," Black Star noted. "I don't think he's a prisoner. He might actually work here. And there aren't any guards in here, so maybe..."

"Maka took him out and stole his stuff!" Soul exclaimed. He always knew she was amazing. Nobody could cage Maka fucking Albarn, not for long.

The ninja kneeled and looked more closely at the sleeping body with a wrinkled nose. "He's a pretty big dude, so his armor would be huge on her. She must've took his weapon too. He doesn't have one." Black Star prodded the guard's arm. "Weaksauce. He's been exercising the other arm, but not this one. Uneven muscle tone, what a rookie. He prolly doesn't even lift." Soul pinched his own bicep, wondering whether the ninja had always thought about people in terms of how well or poorly they exercised. "I bet this guy just swings around a one-hander all day. Not something light like a dagger, but something heavier, like a sword or an axe or-"

Black Star suddenly fell silent, and Soul knew it was because they were thinking of the same tiny guard, the one who was tripping over his oversized armor and raising what looked to be a tomahawk before Soul jumped out of nowhere punched his lights out.

"Shit," Soul said.

"Shit," Black Star agreed.

They returned to the site of their brawl, and Soul couldn't help but blanch when he saw all the unconscious bodies strewn about the floor. Limbs overlapped, armor askew, it was difficult to discern one soldier from another. There were several axes all over the floor as well.

The two started removing helmets and poking breast plates. "Maka?" Soul whispered, removing one helmet. He only moved the metal helmet a couple inches before spying a tangled red beard. He shoved the helmet back onto the guy's skull before moving onto to another unconscious body.

"Mak, that you?' Black Star asked, whipping a helmet off another man. He removed it with such force that the guard woke up, prompting Black Star to punch him again. Deciding that actually looking at each guard's face was too time-consuming, Black Star stood up and began to prod their torsos with his foot. Each jab was accompanied by a woozy grunt. "No, not you, not you, nope, nopity, nope, nope, nope, YES."

He removed the groaning body's helmet more gingerly this time. It was Maka, unharmed but for the trickle of dried blood underneath her nose. Soul felt a pang of guilt; he had hit her hard enough to actually draw blood.

Ecstatic so see Maka living and breathing, the scythe shoved Black Star away so he could throw himself upon his meister. He planted a string of kisses on her sweaty, blood-crusted face and pressed his forehead to hers.

When she finally opened her eyes, Soul expected Maka to express some gratitude for being rescued by her ever-loyal weapon and lover. He realized his naivety when she gave him a furious glare.

"That was a really good right hook," Maka whispered accusingly. Her tone was venomous. "Why don't you hit me like that when we spar? Holding back because I'm littler than you? Or because I'm a girl?"

"Why didn't you dodge me?" Soul whispered back. "I never manage lay a finger on you because your goddamn lightning reflexes."

"I have fifty pounds of armor on," Maka said, wiping dried blood from under her nose. "It slowed me down a little. Besides, why didn't you sense me coming?"'

"I wasn't paying attention."

"Isn't that the truth!"

"Quit bicker-flirting!" Black Star exclaimed. "It's time to make our escape." An inkly black streak poured out of the ninja's pocket, and in a flash of light Tsubaki materialized in human form.

"You had Tsu with you the entire time?" Soul asked. "But I thought this was a secret mission."

Black Star looked affronted. "You think I'd walk into the enemy's base without my weapon? You must have coughed up your brains back there. Seriously."

While Soul and Tsu helped Maka back onto her feet, she sniffed and frowned. "You smell like puke," she said simply.

"Well you're not wrong about that."

Fort Maiden was cleaned out the next day by Shibusen agents, with only slight thanks to the nightly subterfuge of Soul and Black Star. Meanwhile, Soul updated the shoddy bolt on his apartment door, nailed all the windows shut, and held Maka as close as he possibly could


	15. Novella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fresh off the plane, newlyweds Soul and Maka visit old haunts in Florence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get your toothpaste kids, this is gonna rot your teeth. Thanks therewithasmile for the eyes! Slightly explicit content, foreplay.

They didn't even have sex when they first arrived at their honeymoon destination. They checked into their hotel, dumped their stuff in their suite, and immediately turned around to explore the city they had but only glimpsed twice in their teen years.

Truth be told, Maka was not keen on honeymooning in Florence, Italy, not at first. The site of her greatest failure and the spark of Soul's longest nightmare just didn't strike her as romantic-and this was without considering the city's weighty significance regarding their long lost friend, who loomed over them still in the blackened moon.

As usual, it was her weapon that helped her come around to the idea. "Maybe it's the sap in me, but I like the idea of coming full circle," Soul had said. "Sure, we had some lows, but it was because of those lows that we reached our highs." His expression faltered for a moment before he added, "Let's put it behind us."

The couple's first order of business was to rent a moped. Unwilling to compete with Soul's bright orange motorcycle, Maka requested that "Etta" be left behind in Death City. She didn't say it aloud, but Maka didn't really want to invite deja vu by riding around Florence in the same old bike. Once they had rented a reliable, sleek moped, the two set off down Florence's tight, crowded streets.

They ate authentic Italian food in a hole-in-the-wall cafe. According to TripAdvisor, this was one of Florence's best kept secrets. Both Soul and Maka knew that wasn't true, because darkness lingered in even the brightest places, and you could never expect when something sinister was waiting for you behind the corner. But this wasn't a mission; it was their honeymoon, their getaway. Though they became seasoned warriors while still in their teen years, they were allowed to let down their guard just this once.

Soul made it his mission to consume the most disgustingly large chunk of lasagna and olive oil-soaked garlic bread the restaurant could offer him. Maka contented herself with tortellini in a smooth cream sauce.

"Just because I married you doesn't mean you can chew with your mouth open for the rest of our lives," Maka said.

"Too late. You looooove me," Soul responded. Mouth full of garlic bread, he smacked his lips loudly.

"Eugh, you're so obnoxious! I can still get this marriage thing annulled, you know."

"Not for long," he said with a wink. They washed their lunches down with glasses of white wine, which they clinked together before downing their contents.

Stuffed with carbohydrates, the couple took off again on the moped and swerved through traffic. Though they didn't speak, Maka knew where they were going next.

The soft putter of the moped slowed, Soul looked to his right and Maka followed suite. The Basilica of Santa Maria Novella loomed over them. As she drank in its arched windows, ornate spinnerets, and imposing obelisks, Soul's words from ten years before echoes in her mind. "You gotta love Gothic architecture. It's a cool building which shakes the soul."

"Wanna check it out inside?" Soul asked over his shoulder. Maka thought for a moment and then responded by kissing his ear. "Hey now, not in front of God's house," he cautioned playfully.

It was strange to see the church in the daylight with tourists and locals milling around its tall doors. As they walked up the cathedral steps, Maka spotted one tourist trying in vain to pull the doors open.

"Sir, don't pull," Maka said. "The doors only open inward."

They had never really taken the time to look at the cathedral before, considering the circumstances. The ceilings were high and vast, and sunlight trickled through arched windows. Ornamental designs were etched into the very walls, and each buttress was uniformly elaborate. The couple looked at some statues, read some plaques.

"Where's our plaque?" Soul quipped. "I bled out right over there. We should have a plaque."

"No we shouldn't," Maka answered. "We aren't a part of this place's history."

"But it's a part of ours."

An immense rose window shone light in the center of the cathedral hall, and both Soul and Maka stood bathed in its tinted light. Together, they marveled at the bright reds, blues, and purples of the stained glass. The center of the rose design was, oddly enough, pitch black. The glass, Maka realized, wasn't opaque at all. It was the moon, boring down on them from tens of thousands of miles away, coloring the rose window's center as black as nightfall. Crona was with them still, in the trapped meister's own way.

Though she said nothing aloud when her mind wandered back to poor, lost Crona, Soul had an uncanny knack for guessing what direction her thoughts had gone. "You think Crona would be happy for us?" Soul asked.

The sight of the moon aligned so perfectly with the rose window was surprising, but it wasn't an omen or unsightly reminder of past regret. It was...comforting.

"I think they are," Maka said, smiling at the window. A tangled piece of her heart untwisted for the first time since they killed the kishin, and Maka gladly took Soul's hand and led him out of the church with a sensual smile growing on her lips.

Sex had changed for them over the course of their relationship. At first, when they were young and aroused by a single, heated look, they fell into a carnal heap at every opportunity. The two mapped every secluded corner of Shibusen and every surface of their home with their hot breath and moving, needy mouths.

The exploratory, consuming period of their sexlife was superceded by an experimental one. Maka became fascinated by all the places that caused Soul's breath to hitch and a groan to emerge from the depths of his chest, and she tweaked, nibbled, and licked him to ecstasy. In turn, Soul systematically tested every angle, position, and tongue movement he could think of in order to discover what is was that made her mewl and scream.

Shortly after their engagement, Soul and Maka entered a phase of comfort and familiarity, love and acceptance. They were just as likely to fart in the throes as passion as they were to scream and gasp, and the best part was that it didn't matter. There was no need to pretend or put on airs anymore now that their devotion was known, complete, and sincere.

When they arrived back at their hotel suite, Soul scooped his new wife off the ground and bounded towards the bed. He jumped and fell backwards onto the dark blue comforter with Maka in his arms, only to briefly lose her as they both landed and bounced on the mattress. Limbs akimbo and pillows askew, Soul quieted Maka's giggles with a brazen, open-mouthed kiss. The sexual chemistry they had been repressing during their tour down memory lane was unleashed in full force, and Maka skipped straight to nibbling his bottom lip, earning her a feral groan.

Soul's hand was up Maka's shirt and under her bra in an instant, and his thumb began to draw faint, tantalizing circles on her pert nipple. She squirmed beneath him with impatience, and after rolling his eyes he helped her shimmy out of her shirt and unclasp her bra, allowing her boobs to finally spring free.

He left her now-bare breasts to roll back onto his knees and pull his shirt over his head. The only thing about Soul that had remained exactly the same in the last ten years was the stitched scar he earned in the Basilica. He had filled out his boney teenage body with tanned muscle, and his formerly unkept and long white hair was trimmed into a more manageable haircut. At that moment, it was tousled by a busy day and even busier hands. He looked older, more confident-happy.

After peppering her neck with kisses, Soul got a mischievous glint in his eyes and blew the loudest, most slobbery raspberry in the crook of Maka's neck. Her shoulder and neck clamped together immediately, causing her to squeal in protest. Not to be beaten, Maka retaliated by puffing directly in his right ear. Nothing turned on Soul like a trace of hot breath tickling his ear lobe while she panted into his neck, but funnelling a blast of minty fresh breath down his ear canal had the opposite effect. He shrunk away like a dog facing the spray bottle, and Maka pushed him away and flipped him onto his back.

"You're ridiculous, Soul Albarn-Evans," Maka said with a coy laugh, straddling her husband.

"Only for you, Maka Albarn-Evans."


	16. Soul Eater: Origins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soul doesn't believe he is destined for great things, but when he begins to feel forbidden magic crackling at his fingertips, a shapeshifting cat convinces him otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This time last year I wrote a series of one shots and scenes inspired by Dragon Age: Origins. I'm finally moving them along to ! I hope you enjoy.

It was unclear when the magic first manifested. Maybe it was when he was five and frustrated with the lute his mother had given him, and every candle flame in the room had jumped five feet towards the ceiling. Perhaps it was when his father had ordered him to shake hands with the teryn's jerk son and, despite having no contact with wooly fabrics, a touch of Soul's hand had sent a shock up the older boy's arm. Or maybe, when he was even younger, it began when he had started dreaming of a hazy, alternate world full of desire, adventure, and danger.

Whenever it started, Soul Evans of West Hills knew for certain that he was a mage the day Curtis the groundskeeper tried to drown the kittens.

He was only ten then, a noble's second son that was sheltered from the world, spoiled by status, and passed over by birthright. Looking back, it seemed strange that Soul used to know more about his place in the kingdom's political hierarchy than he did about magic. Ten-year-old Soul couldn't escape the truth that Wes, the elder brother, was to inherit everything, and he, the younger brother, was to be a political pawn for his parents. The best Soul could hope for was to marry a noble daughter wealthy enough to set him up for life or to join the army and become a war hero. Neither were appealing. He was trapped, powerless, desperately unhappy. Little did he know that ten years down the road, Soul would know nothing but unbridled freedom and the heat of magic coursing through his veins.

It was fitting that the turning point in his childhood was triggered by a trio of kittens. He was playing with Wes on the estate's lush, freshly manicured grass when they saw their groundskeeper wrangle three of the castle cat's newest litter into a burlap sack. The kittens mewled softly as they were gruffly picked up and dropped into the sack, no resisting their imminent fate.

"What's Curtis doing with the baby cats?" Soul asked with a tilt of his head.

Wes was four years older, and he understood these things better than his brother. "You don't know? He's going to drown them."

Soul blinked, uncomprehending. "Is that one of the phrases my tutor says aren't 'sposed to be literal? Like 'The cat's out of the bag!" or "Look what the cat dragged in!"'

His brother blanched. "No…"

Soul's red eyes bulged. The boy scrambled to his feet, took a deep breath, and screamed. He ran as quickly after Curtis as his short legs could carry him, yelling so loudly that he couldn't hear Wes calling after him.

He found the groundskeeper opening a barrel of water in the stable. The bag in his hand continued to wiggle as he scooped water into a bucket and set it on the ground. The older man did pause when he heard Soul's shouting, but when the boy finally made it into the stable, Curtis rolled his eyes.

"Not now, Soul," Curtis muttered. He never did bother to refer to the boy as "young master" or any other honorifics, a habit Soul ultimately preferred. "Just taking care of some groundskeeping business. Nothing to see here."

The kittens were still writhing in the bag and mewling sweetly. "Those are my cats," Soul blurted, not taking his eyes off the sack. "I need them right now. I order you to give them to me, and I'll tell my father if you don't."

Curtis hacked a dry laugh. "Your father was the one that asked me to do it." Soul stared defiantly at the stablemaster, who sighed and rubbed his brow. "Look, I know this is nasty business. I don't get any enjoyment from it, but the fact is that we'll get overrun if we let the cats breed as they do. Come on now, let's not cause a fuss."

"No!" Soul said with clenched fists. "I'll stop you- _-I'll fight you!"_

It was mighty optimistic of him to think he could physically overpower the groundskeeper. Soul never really realized before just how huge Curtis was. The man was broad-chested and tall, and he could easily pick Soul up by his shirt with one hand and drown the kittens with the other, and he probably would have done if manhandling his lord's son wouldn't earn him a lashing.

"It won't look good for either of us if you try anything like that," Curtis said. He closed the barrel and hoisted the full bucket onto its lid. He was going to do it, he really was going to drown them right now. Soul's heart leapt into his throat, and he charged. His hands tugged at the older man's shirt and tears budded in Soul's eyes as Curtis lifted the bag of kittens towards the bucket. In a moment of desperation and fear, Soul shut his eyes and reeled back his arm. His fist made contact with Curtis' side, but it was too weak a punch to hurt or knock the man over. There was nothing Soul could do.

Or so he thought. Sniffing, Soul looked up at the groundskeeper. Curtis stood still, an immobile stone statue. He wasn't even blinking or breathing. The bag was still clutched in his fist. Soul took this opportunity to tear it away from Curtis' corpse-like hand and sprint pell-mell towards the forest just beyond the stable. Maybe if he gave the kittens a head start, they had a fighting chance of survival.

After running just behind the treeline, Soul untied the sack to set the kittens loose.

"Go!" Soul urged, nudging the kittens forward. They tumbled onto their backs and mewled. "Escape while you still can! You can do it!" The tabby sniffed the ground for a moment, only to prance towards him and bop his hand playfully with its paw. "Damn it, you're supposed to _run_. Be free!"

He didn't know how long Curtis would be paralyzed, and he was sure that when the older man regained feeling in his muscles, he would come after Soul. Whatever Soul did to stop Curtis from shoving the kittens into a bucket of water, he didn't think he could repeat it a second time. It was so unfair that they had to die, and for what? Because they were extra, and there was apparently no room for them. Was that such a horrible crime, to be extra? There was a place for him here, after all.

Soul considered taking the kittens home to raise them in his bedroom (they didn't poop a lot right?). Before he arrived at a decision, a large, dark cat emerged from the shadows. It was a plump creature with a purple sheen and golden eyes so bright, they almost glowed. It released a deep meow, and the kittens immediately got to their feet and clustered around the large cat. To Soul, it seemed to be adopting the poor things.

"Thank you!" Soul said, though it made him feel silly. This was, after all, a cat.

"No problem!" the cat replied with a wink. The boy stared open-mouthed as the cat picked up one kitten by the scruff and carried it away. They other two followed obediently, as if in a trance.

Wes was never gonna believe this.

After he rushed home with an amazing story on the tip of his tongue, Soul learned that Curtis had collapsed and was recovering in his quarters. He suffered a "mild fainting spell," his mother said with a nervous laugh. Soul nodded like a good son and mentioned that he hoped Curtis made a quick recovery, but his heart pounded as that information sank in. Soul had completely immobilized Curtis with a single touch, and now the man was comatose. He also had a real conversation with an animal. While his mother did not mean it literally, one mention of the word "spell" caused everything to fall into place.

There was a more than slight possibility that Soul was a mage.

Mages weren't discussed often in polite circles and it was thus impossible for Soul to practice any magic or ask anyone about becoming a mage. Why hadn't he met any mages before? Where were they? Soul quickly learned that these weren't questions he could ask and receive a simple answer.

"Almost all mages in the realm live in Circle Tower," Wes told him later in the family library with acute disinterest. Wes flipped a page of his book, bored, while his younger brother stared wordlessly at his own blank parchment. "Father told me it's the only place those heathens can study their abominable craft without being tarred, feathered, or worse."

The implications of 'or worse' made Soul shiver. "Where do the rest of them live?" Soul whispered.

His brother shrugged. "Wherever they are told to, I suppose."

Soul frowned as he tried to fathom what it was like to be trapped in a tower until someone he didn't know said it was okay for him to leave. It rubbed him wrong. He didn't like being contained in his family estate, but at least there he was allowed to go outside.

"I know that magic seems interesting, but you shouldn't get too into that stuff," Wes warned. "There's a reason they live in a tower. Any mage, even the young ones, can boil your blood if they look at you funny. It's just better to forget about them. I know Father doesn't like talking about them."

The younger brother said nothing and fiddled with his parchment. There was a lot their father didn't like talking about, especially with Soul. Wes, thinking that his brother was disappointed his curiosity was so swiftly shut down, tried to cheer Soul up. "I mean, I guess there's no harm in reading about magic. I read that when the Qunari find a mage, they cut out its tongue so it can't recite spells anymore!'"

To Wes' chagrin, that fun fact caused Soul to sink deep into his chair and retreat even further into himself.

It was common knowledge that Soul should put more effort into his schooling, but history and languages and writing seemed a little mundane now that he had forbidden magic to learn-or rather, to hide. When Curtis woke up, he'd probably tell everyone how he fell asleep. Then everyone would know. Soul didn't fancy being tarred, feathered, or cooped up in a tower. He also didn't want to have his tongue cut out...or worse.

About a week after the incident with Curtis and the kittens, Soul's mother noticed her son's quieter demeanor and elected to sing him to sleep like she used to do. Her song was a bittersweet ballad about a bird struggling to escape its tether. What it was tethered to the song did not specify, and Soul felt it was imperative to find out.

"What's the bird trying to be free from?" Soul asked after she was finished.

His mother sighed. After a long day running the estate, her reserves of maternal energy were already depleted by a single song. "I don't know. Anything. Everything. Be quiet."

"But you can't be free from everything."

This got a chuckle out of her. "You're absolutely right," she said, pulling her son's covers up to his chest.

"You can never be all the way free." His mother's smile vanished. She gave him a peculiar look, but Soul did not notice. He stared distantly at the ceiling with furrowed eyebrows, almost as if he was seeing something far beyond human vision. "He's been trying his whole life to be free from something he'll never be free from."

The realization that he would someday live in a cold tower away from his family weighed heavily on him, but it was the clawing, terrifying sensation of being already trapped that made Soul despair. He was a mage now. It was sealed, decided, irreversible. There were a lot of things he didn't understand about mages and where they fit in the kingdom's political tapestry, and at his young age, Soul didn't quite get who exactly it was that ordained where mages can live and work.

What he did know all too clearly was that the magic wasn't going away. But maybe, he could.

He didn't seriously entertain the idea of running away until Curtis woke up raving. Soul and Wes were forbidden to go near Curtis's room for fear of catching whatever curse the groundskeeper was suffering from. Templars were summoned. A healer was also on the way. Whispers of 'maleficarum' and 'blood mage' spread through the castle halls, and Soul could not help but imagine that they were all talking about him. How much longer until they found him out?

Exactly three weeks after the initial confrontation with Curtis, Soul was solemnly playing outside with Wes once again on the estate green. Wes ran inside to find an imitation sword for their next game, and when no one was looking, Soul darted back into the woods. He leapt over tree roots and batted away branches as he sped further into the forest. His chest ached and his mouth tasted of copper, but at least-

"You're going to get caught."

Soul stopped in his tracks at the sound of that familiar voice. Perched upon a rock was the black cat that had spoken to him. He had first laid eyes upon that cat only three weeks ago, but it felt like a century. A century of worry and fear.

"I'm just saying," the cat continued in its perky, feminine voice, "That if you really want to run away, dashing into the forest with no supplies, no map, and no plan is going to get you killed or caught. Probably the latter, since your daddy would send all of his men out looking for you the moment you are found missing in, oh, twenty minutes."

Now that he thought about it, it was probably true. Soul walked over to the cat's rock and slid down onto his knees. He fiddled with leaves on the ground with slumped shoulders, unwilling to show just how exhausted and frantic he felt.

"Why are you running away, kitten?" the cat asked. It jumped off the rock and approached the boy. "Tell Blair what's bothering you," it-she-said.

There was no one else Soul could talk to about this, so he might as well say it to a talking cat. It came out in a single breath. "I'm a mage, and when I'm found out, everyone is going to hate me."

Blair purred knowingly. She sat down and pawed at the ground. "I see. A lot of baby mages like you try the same thing. That's the only problem about being a mage," she continued. "Everyone is jealous of us."

Her choice to say "us" was chilling, but Soul focused more on what she said about jealousy. Oh, Soul was familiar with jealousy. What he wasn't so familiar with was the idea that people could be jealous of him. "But why?" Soul asked. "Why do they even care? Why don't they just leave us alone?"

"It's very simple," the cat said, slowly advancing toward him with her head cocked to one side. "They're weak, we're strong. We're special, and they're not. They're blind, Soul, blind since the days they were born." Soul became fixated on Blair's bright, unblinking eyes. "But you and me, our eyes have always been open. We see how the world really works. We are capable of anything, and that makes us powerful."

"Maybe you are," Soul muttered. He was just the second Evans son. Using any positive adjective to describe his talents was a tough sell. "I've never done magic on purpose."

"That's because no one has taught you, silly," Blair said helpfully. "When you go to the Circle, you'll meet all kinds of teachers that will help you learn. You will finally be surrounded by people just like you."

Soul had been so worried about being stuck in a tower, he hadn't considered the fact that he would be trapped in there with _people_. "No! I don't want to go there! Anything but that!"

Blair's ears perked up. "Well," the cat said, contemplating. "If you're going to run away, you have to do it so you don't leave any trace. I bet if you turned into a swarm of beetles, you would be nearly impossible to track. Or you could summon a blizzard over the castle. Your family will freeze to death while you sneak away, and after it's over everyone will be too sad to realize you're long gone. No, set the castle on fire! That way, no one will be able to tell your body is missing from the charred remains. It's the perrrrfect escape."

He wordlessly pet Blair's dark fur with a horrified expression. The guilt of sending Curtis into a coma for threatening a couple kittens was heavy enough, but slaughtering his whole family for no reason… "I don't, I mean, I don't think-"

"Oh right, you're a baby," she said, disappointed. "You can't do any fun magic yet." Blair settled into his lap and purred. "You sure you want to run away? The Circle is a prison, but it's a nice prison. At least you won't be lonely. Choosing love and family can make you even happier than power and survival."

Without a word, Soul gingerly lifted the cat in his lap so he could stare into her eyes. "You don't believe that stuff at all."

Blair blinked at him. "No, but I wanted to make you feel better. I don't like seeing baby mages like you with nowhere else to go. No one else to rely on."

Soul placed her back in his lap and began to absently stroke her head. In the distance, he heard Wes calling his name, telling Soul to come back to the castle. The younger Evans did not move, preferring to linger in the secrecy of the woods a little longer.

"You know," Blair purred. "If you found someone who would whisk you away before they sent you to the tower, someone who would teach you, nurture you, then you might still be free." It was in this moment that Soul remembered with a jolt that the cat in his lap called herself a mage, which meant that not only was she a person, but she also didn't live in the tower. His heart began to beat faster when he realized that this might be able to work out so, so perfectly… "You have so much potential, Soul, and I'm not just saying that." Blair looked up at him with burning yellow eyes. "If you become my apprentice, I can make you the stuff of legends. If that is what you want."

Years later, Soul would realize that this was what Blair had been leading up to all along.

Unfortunately, at age ten he was not yet cognizant of his soon-to-be-mentor's brand of manipulation. Light mist swirled from the ground as Soul, full to the brim with eagerness and fear, said, "Yes, take me with you!"

Wes' calling was getting closer, but his voice was joined with several others. Soul's brother must have told someone that he was was missing and started a search. It was now or never, tower or freedom. "They're coming!" Soul said, his eyes searching through the increasingly dark forest. "What should I do?"

The cat leapt off his lap. Dark tendrils of smoke began to circle around her body, and the static in her soft fur sparked and sizzled. "Just close your eyes," Blair whispered. She glowed. "I'll take care of the rest." Her face elongated and her limbs began to stretch and shift from fur to skin. Though he was deeply intrigued by the transformation in front of him, and the sound of Wes' voice growing closer filled him with last minute doubt, Soul did as he was told and shut his eyes tight.

The last memories Soul had of that day was the chirping of cicadas and the whipping of the wind.


End file.
